Crane NXT, Co.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ukraine NXT second quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during a session you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I want to hand the conference over to your speaker today. Christina Cristiano, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning everyone. I want to welcome you all to the second quarter 2024 earnings call for Ukraine NXT. Before we begin, the slides we will reference during this presentation can be accessed via the investor relations section of our website at kreinnext.com. A replay of today's call will also be available on our website. Before we discuss our results I encourage all listeners to review the legal notice on slide 2 which explains the risk of forward looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Additionally, we refer you to the cautionary language at the bottom of our earnings release and in our forms 10K and 10Q filings pertaining to forward looking statements. During the call we will also be using non-GAAP numbers which are reconciled to the comparable GAAP numbers in the tables at the end of our press release and accompanying slide presentation, both of which are available on our website at kreinnext.com in the investor relations section. With me today is Aaron Seake, our President and Chief Executive Officer. On our call this morning we will discuss our financial results, provide an update on the OPSEC acquisition, and update our 2024 guidance. After our prepared remarks we will open the call to analysts for questions. Now let me turn the call over to Aaron.

Thank you Christina and good morning. We appreciate everyone joining the call today to discuss our second quarter 2024 results. Before we begin I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our NXT associates around the world for their efforts to deliver solid performance this quarter. Our second quarter performance was in line with our expectations. Sales increased 5% over the prior year reaching 371 million driven by the acquisition of OPSEC. I'm very pleased with the operational performance of OPSEC and the progress we're making with integrating the business into NXT. Over the past three months we've been meeting with many of our customers and the response to the acquisition has been very positive. We have clear line of sight to achieving the commercial and operational synergies that we identified when we announced the acquisition. We've hit the ground running to generate a funnel of new opportunities with our market leading portfolio of online and physical authentication technologies and started implementing the continuous improvement fundamentals of the crane business system. We continue to be very excited about OPSEC and what it means for crane NXT in executing our strategy of providing trusted technology solutions that secure, detect and authenticate our customers' most valuable assets. In Q2 crane currency continue to win new orders ending the quarter with a record high backlog. We also expanded share with existing customers by issuing 11 new denominations with micro optics technology. Given the strong backlog and visibility into timing of shipments, we're raising our full year core sales growth for currency to 3 to 5%. Additionally, CPI had year over year core sales growth for the first time in four quarters. Inventories in the gaming vertical of normalized and the other verticals within CPI continue to perform as expected growing amid single digits. Finally, we continue to have a very active M&A pipeline. We enter the quarter with net debt to EBITDA ratio of approximately 1.8 times positioning us well to further expand and diversify our portfolio with ample M&A capacity. In summary, our year to day performance and outlook give us confidence to narrow our adjusted EPS guidance to $4.20 to $4.35. Moving to slide four, in connection with the acquisition of OPSEC, we updated our reportable segments to better align our strategy of expanding our portfolio of market leading technologies that secure, detect and authenticate. The security and authentication technology segment consists of the OPSEC and crane currency businesses. In the CPI segment, we're seeing continued strength and many in markets. This includes vending where our strong performance reflects new wins with existing customers and productivity initiatives that are improving margins. Additionally, in our services business, we continue to expand our offerings and acquire new customers with several new wins in the quarter driving growth in recurring revenue. I'm also excited that Michael Mahan joined us this quarter as the new president of CPI. In this role, Michael is responsible for driving the CPI growth strategy, accelerating innovation and leveraging the crane business system to drive continuous improvement and operational excellence. Michael is quickly acclimating to Crane NXT, visiting customers and traveling to our CPI sites around the world to meet our associates. I'm happy to have him on our team. As mentioned in the announcement of Michael joining, Kurt Gallo will be retiring in early 2025 after 16 years with the company. I'd like to personally thank Kurt for his service and leadership over these many years. Overall, I'm incredibly excited about the future of Crane NXT, the portfolio we're building and the leadership team we're putting in place. We are well on track to deliver our financial targets this year. We're operating from a position of strength as we continue to execute our strategy to further expand and diversify our portfolio and drive shareholder value. I'm now going to hand the call over to Christina to walk us through our second quarter financial performance as well as provide more details on our updated 2024 guidance.

Thank you, Aaron. And good morning again. I would also like to express appreciation to our global associates for their strong execution this quarter. Starting on slide five, as Aaron mentioned, our second quarter results were in line with our expectations. Sales grew approximately 5% reflecting the acquisition of OPSEC security and core sales growth of approximately 1% year over year driven by growth at CPI. Adjusted segment operating margin of 27% reflects dilution from the OPSEC acquisition and an unfavorable product mix year over year. Adjusted free cash flow was impacted by higher capex related to our continued investments in the U.S. banknote redesign program as we discussed last quarter. Finally, adjusted EPS of $1.06 puts us on track with our full year guidance. Moving to our segment, CPI reported core sales growth of 1% in the second quarter, reflecting mid single digit growth across all end markets outside of gaming. Adjusted segment operating margin contracted 110 basis points year over year to 30%, reflecting unfavorable product mix due to lower gaming sales, partially offset by strong pricing execution and productivity initiatives. Looking across our markets, gaming performed as expected in the quarter, with customers continuing to draw down on inventory over stock. Gaming backlog has now returned to normal levels, and we are encouraged by the new orders we are seeing from our OEM customers, which we expect to continue for the rest of the year. Outside of gaming, our other end markets are growing as anticipated, and we continue to expect full year revenue growth in the non-gaming verticals to be in the mid single digits. Based on our backlog and the timing of new gaming orders, we expect CPI revenue for the remainder of the year to be slightly more weighted toward the fourth quarter. Moving to security and authentication technologies on slide seven, sales grew 16% reflecting the OPSEC acquisition, with core sales up slightly as higher U.S. sales offset lower international volumes, which were impacted by the timing of shipments. Adjusted segment operating margin was 23% in the quarter, reflecting dilution from the OPSEC acquisition and unfavorable mix in currency related to production of more lower denomination U.S. notes in preparation for the next equipment upgrade cycle. As a reminder, this year we took some of our U.S. paper making equipment offline during the first quarter for upgrades to accommodate the new designs and technology for the U.S. banknote series that commences in 2026. The first upgrade cycle went very well, and we resumed production on schedule. We will have another upgrade cycle beginning in the fourth quarter of this year, which will continue into the first quarter of 2025. OPSEC's performance in the quarter was as expected, and we are on track to achieve the full year targets we communicated last quarter. As we look ahead to 2025 and beyond, we continue to see significant opportunities for margin expansion at OPSEC using our proven crane business system to drive productivity improvement in supply chain and manufacturing processes. Overall, we have very high confidence in our full year projections for security and authentication technologies. Our international currency backlog is up approximately 65% year over year, and we now expect currency core sales growth of 3 to 5%, up from our prior range of 2 to 3%. Looking ahead, we have high visibility into the timing of our shipments and expect segment revenue to be slightly higher in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter. Moving to our balance sheet on slide eight, our net leverage ratio was approximately 1.8 times at the end of the second quarter, reflecting additional borrowings on our revolver to fund the OPSEC acquisition. Our substantial free cash flow generation allows us to continue to focus on investing in organic growth and paying down debt, while maintaining flexibility to deploy capital for future strategic M&A. Turning to our 2024 guidance on slide nine, based on our performance in the quarter and confidence in our outlook, we are narrowing our adjusted EPS guidance to a range of $4.20 to $4.35. In addition, given our strong currency backlog, we now expect currency core sales growth of 3 to 5%. The rest of our guidance remains unchanged. Now let me turn the call back to Erin for closing remarks.

Thanks, Christina. In conclusion, throughout the second quarter, we continued executing our strategy and delivered another strong quarter in line with our expectations. Based on our performance, we raised the midpoint of our full year adjusted EPS guidance and were confident in our outlook. Our strategic priorities remain unchanged and we believe they will create long-term shareholder value. We're investing in our core businesses, driving productivity through CVS and building a strong M&A pipeline to diversify and expand the portfolio. With this focus, I'm confident we'll achieve our vision of growing crane and XT to 3 billion in revenue over the next five years. So with that, I'd like to thank you for your time this morning and I'd also again like to thank our associates around the world for their commitment to delivering value to our customers and all of our stakeholders. With that, operator, we're ready to take our first question.

Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 101 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Until we draw your question, please press star 101 again. Please stand by. We'll compile the Q&A roster.

One moment for our first question. Our first question will come from the line of Matt Somerville from DA Davidson.

Your line is open.

Thanks, morning. Maybe first, let's talk about the currency side of the business. I mean, the thing that probably stuck out the most to me was that the backlog there took a major step function up in the quarter beyond, well beyond last year's record level. Can you maybe talk a little bit, Aaron and Christina, as to the drivers there? How much of that is the market versus market share versus timing of new denominational introductions? And what does this mean in terms of early, an early read on visibility to 25 in that business?

Yeah, well, thanks for the question, Matt. Good morning. Well, I think you're right. We're really encouraged here by the backlog in currency. And line of sight, it really gives us here in 24. You know, that's very helpful for us in terms of timing and understanding the cadence of the second half. That's what gave us confidence to raise the sales guidance up three to five percent. To answer your question on the market, I don't think there's a real fundamental change in the market. You know, it's lumpy in terms of tendering. And we feel very confident in our positioning with the market leading technology. So I think this is just a continuation of our strength in the market. And as you know, as well, Matt, some of these tenders come in and they're for multiple years. And that's what you also see reflected in the backlog. So while we have very good visibility in the backlog, some of those tenders are going to stay for, you know, six to 24 months in our backlog as we move to production. So again, a lot of confidence for the second half of the year, a lot of visibility to it. And that's what led to our raise of the sales guidance. I think it's probably premature to talk about 25 at this point in time.

Then maybe go over to CPI for a moment. You didn't tighten the guidance range there. Maybe curious as to maybe a little more detail on what you're seeing in the four main verticals. And I want you to definitely touch on retail. You know, the performance in that business up mid single digits during the period and kind of that outlook for the year sort of goes against at least directionally where some of the major OEMs are talking about their business, noting one of which is sort of shifting their manufacturing strategy. So any perspective you may have on how that impacts or not CXT, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, sure, sure, Matt. Well, again, CPI, as Christina mentioned, performed just as expected in Q2 from our perspective. Gaming continued the burn down of the backlog. And again, we have very good line of sight to our inventory positions at our various customers. Let me take a moment just to talk about retail and then I'll hand it over to Christina to talk about the other end markets. You know, for us, retail, we actually saw growth through the first half of the year. And we believe very strongly the long term macro trends in retail are still in place, which is driven by labor scarcity and the drive for retailers to implement more automation for their own efficiency and productivity. So we think that's unchanged. Now, you know, just a reminder, as I know, you know, Matt, but to others, we really go to market and retail through two channels. That includes the OEM channel, some of the names like an NCR that I believe you're alluding to given their announcements, and also direct with retailers into custom self-checkout. So in terms of the OEM channel, we have seen a slowdown in the first part of 2024 and we expect some softness there to continue. For us, that's really been offset, though, as retailers are looking more at their own customization and configuring the systems differently and doing it themselves. And we've seen continued investment on the customs side of the market as they're moving away from standardized form factors. So when you put those two in balance, again, we've seen growth in the first half of the year. We think the long term trends are in place, but we do see a different channel mix that's playing out in the markets, and that's globally. So maybe with that, Christina, I'll hand it to you to talk about the other verticals.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Erin. And as Erin said earlier, outside of gaming, we saw the other verticals growing at mid-single digits, and we expect that to continue. There's been particular strength in gaming, excuse me, in vending, which has performed consistently well since COVID. And I'll also just highlight our services business, which continues to perform well, driving recurring revenue and a very high attach rate. Now, in gaming, we're encouraged by the change to what we were expecting, but a slightly higher Q2, and that's more of a phasing impact than an impact on the full year. But overall, we expect CPI to be in the same range that we previously communicated. So while we're encouraged by what we saw in Q2, we've left the overall sales guidance unchanged for CPI, and we believe that's prudent and appropriately risk adjusted.

Great. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from Bob Labick from CJS Securities. Elaine is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions.

Good morning, Bob.

So you started, you alluded to this a little. Maybe we could dig in a little more on the OPSEC integration process. Give us a sense of, you know, where you stand in integration, any surprises you've seen, good or bad, maybe some color and customer reactions, and then the opportunities for synergies, both cost and revenue synergies looking ahead.

Yeah, thanks, Bob. As I said in my prepared remarks, you know, we're very encouraged with the acquisition, and it's performing, and the integration is going as planned. You know, we're on track to that $80 million range for revenue in 2024, and I just reiterate the strong, positive response we've had from our customers. You know, now we're in that phase, call it 100 days in post-acquisition to really meeting with customers, building out the funnel of opportunities for both new wins but also share of wallet expansion with micro-optics. And, you know, just a reminder that that sales cycle is, you know, anywhere from 9 to 18 months as customers have to go in and update their designs and then go through a launch and qualification process. So I would say it's going just as planned with a lot of healthy excitement, and I think more to come as we announce in the quarters ahead some wins. And on the operational side, again, CBS is such a core part of our disciplined operating process. We are heavily involved in OPSEC, deploying resources and training and starting to implement many of the actions that we had line of sight to as part of our investment thesis. So, again, I feel very confident in the line of sight to the 8 million of synergies we promised by 2026 and confident we're going to get there,

Bob. Okay, super. I appreciate that color. And then kind of sticking with OPSEC and your M&A comments earlier, obviously they're in a bunch of end markets, sports media, consumer, industrial, financial services, et cetera, but there's others, pharma, food and beverage, and many more in authentication. So are those other markets organic extensions or is that part of the M&A focus? How should we think about the future M&A as it relates to what you already have with OPSEC and how it will fit?

Yeah, Bob, hey, I think you're thinking about this exactly the right way is how we're thinking about it. Our immediate focus here, just to reiterate, is to successfully integrate and operate OPSEC. That is the focus of the team. But with that said, we have a very strong funnel of M&A opportunities we're continuing to cultivate. I feel very, very confident with the leverage sitting at 1.8 as we exited this quarter that gives us ample capacity. And we want to continue a really disciplined process around that M&A. And I think your comments on our focus is, again, how we're thinking about it. We see this as a large $3 billion TAM all in this security and authentication space. It's fragmented with positive growth dynamics of mid-single digit to mid-single digit plus. And we see these opportunities for both bolt-ons of new technology into the core, as well as enhancing our exposure to different vertical markets, just a few of which you named, whether that's consumer, farmer, or government. So that's exactly where part of our M&A funnel is focused. And we feel, again, confident we were in a very good position to take action, again, doing what we said we were going to do with one to two acquisitions a year.

Super. All right. Thanks so much. Thanks, Bob.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Damian Carras from UBS. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Good morning, Damian.

It's

nice to

hear you've been outperforming some of the market trends, especially in CPI. I was wondering if you could maybe give us a sense of the progression of orders for the CPI segment through the second quarter and into July, and maybe if you could perhaps kind of quantify what the order of run rate on a dollar basis has looked like. I guess if I'm just kind of looking at the backlog and the sales numbers in the second quarter, I'm coming to something like maybe in the low 200 millions. Does that sound about right?

I think you're thinking about it in the right geography there, Damian. Again, if I think about gaming, the entire backlog of CPI, as Christina mentioned, has gotten back to where we would say are close to normal levels. There's always going to be some fluctuations quarter to quarter, but we're in the zone of where we think it's normalized. And in gaming, some of the OEMs have returned to ordering. Again, that feels exactly in line with what we expected given the visibility into the backlog, or excuse me, into their inventory levels. And now we have this line of sight to the rest of the year, to your question, that we see continuing to progress with orders slightly skewed again to Q4. So I think the way you're thinking about that is directionally correct.

Okay, that's helpful. And then in the currency business, I'm presuming for the US, kind of the high watermarks the third quarter, and then it's some of the international project activity that's going to drive kind of like the sequential improvement in the fourth

quarter.

And then I just wanted to ask on that, so that equipment upgrade is going to kind of happen for Q and then into early next year. Is that going to be kind of like the last equipment upgrade and then start thinking about kind of a sort of a pick up in the new design, the new denomination later next year for the US business? Just want to make sure we're kind of thinking about that the right way.

Yeah, why don't I take the first part and I'll hand it over to Christina for the second part of your question. So as we just think about the phasing of revenue for currency in the second half of the year, again, the build of this backlog has given us a lot of confidence in line of sight to the shipment schedule. And that's why we have the confidence to raise the sales forecast. I think when you think about the phasing, it's going to be slightly higher in Q4 than in Q3, just in terms of revenue. And again, that's just what we see in terms of customer request ship dates. So again, pretty high level of confidence on that. As it relates to the US upgrade cycle and kind of the phasing as we go forward, Christina, I'll let you Yeah,

just to answer the specific question. So this cycle that will start in Q4 and continue into Q1 of next year is the last one and it supports the entire new series. And we're on track with that program to kick off as planned. And that was aligned with our guidance and our target expectations for the full year. So no change coming from that production stoppage.

It's already on the 2025 and beyond in the new series design announcements. As we've always said, we have to allow the BEP and the Treasury to make those announcements. Obviously, we feel very, very good about our relationship with them. But they'll be making those announcements likely in 2025 on the actual phasing and design of the new currency.

Terrific. This is really helpful. Thanks, I'll pass it along.

Thanks, Damian.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Bobby Brooks from Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my call. Hey, you know, my first question, you guys gave a little bit of color, you know, market share, on the market share trends that you've seen in CPI and those, you know, your kind of leadership position in both, you know, specifically vending have continued to stay strong. But I'm just kind of curious if we could double click on that and just, you know, get a little bit more granular. Obviously, there is some normalizations within gaming given, you know, competitor regaining a certification. So maybe that shows like market share shift in there. But that's more so the normalization. But I'm just kind of curious about, you know, that and just kind of maybe breaking it down by segment within CPI. And maybe the best way is just to help compare and contrast those, you know, market share trends that you've seen within CPI now versus what you were seeing maybe a year ago.

Yeah.

Well,

hey, thanks for that question, Bobby. I think it does make sense. We'll go kind of vertical by vertical for you. So in gaming, you

know,

maybe I'll go back more than a year, you know, we had a really fantastic position in the market that was enhanced over the past few years as one of our competitors struggled. And we believe we've maintained that share and continue to be the provider of choice. So again, with high visibility into the major OEMs that buy our products and casinos that specify those products, we feel very good. So I wouldn't say there's necessarily a share shift that's occurred other than we've maintained and continue to be the market leader in the gaming vertical with good line of sight to how we think those orders are going to play out for the rest of the year. You know, if I go to vending, again, we, you know, we define that market from our perspective as vending machines, not convenience retail broadly, we don't include micro markets as an example in our TAM. We're really talking about vending machines and that form factor and the payment and telemetry and remote services that come along with that type of piece of equipment. So inside that market, again, we see it growing coming back off these COVID lows. Again, we've always had a very robust share in that market. We believe we've maintained that and continue to introduce new features both in cold vending, in dry good vending, but also in coffee, where we have a very strong offering, particularly in Europe that we see growing and implemented more here in the United States. So, you know, from how we define this market and where we play and how we expect to win, we feel very good. So maybe I'll pause there, Christina, if you want to take the other verticals.

Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, you spoke a little bit about retail earlier and so I don't know that we need to dive too much more deeply into that, but I'll say, you know, we're off to a good start this year. The first half of the year, as compared to last year, is doing very well and that's largely related to custom retail projects that we're working directly with either integrators or directly with our third-party customers. And so projects that were delayed last year, we're now seeing coming through and that's off to a good start, again, for the full year expecting -single-digit growth there. And just, you know, overall, our services business, which supports several of the verticals, has been very strong, had some solid new wins in the quarter, and we expect that to continue growing at mid-single digits as well.

Got it. Thank you guys. That's terrific color. And then just, I kind of want to follow back up on Matt's question earlier and just more so looking at it from a sequential view. So 100, you know, you guys had a hundred plus million dollar sequential increase in the security and authentication backlog. Could you just maybe flesh out how much of that was acquired backlog from OPSEC and then what was the international currency mix for that? I know you talked about being at a record high. And then maybe just any, if that sequential step up in backlog, was there any benefit from new business from OPSEC that you guys have won since taking ownership or any interesting, you know, product or authentication ones, you know, mixed into that?

Yeah, I'll take that one, Bobby. And, you know, first I'll just say great execution by our currency team, you know, where we continue to win in the international currency market, and that's what's led us to increase our sales guidance for currency for the full year. In terms of the breakdown of the backlog, the majority of it is related to current international currency. And, you know, it's part of our disclosure. So your OPSEC is approximately 30 million of the backlog at the end of the quarter. This quarter, as Aaron said earlier, we had several new multi-year orders, which will begin shipping this year. But that inflates, that's really the primary driver of the inflation of the backlog over last year. And that'll stay in the backlog now, you know, through 25 and some going into 2026. So, you know, overall, again, the strength in our backlog gives us high confidence in the full year targets.

Got it. And then just one clarifying question. So I know you guys talk about winning 10 to 15 new international denominations a year in the prepared remarks. I think Aaron mentioned you've issued 11 new micro-optic denominations this year. So I just want to clarify, is that 11 number, is that new international denomination wins, or is that something different? And if it's something different, how many international denomination wins have you gotten thus far this year? Yeah,

thanks, Bobby. Let me clarify that. Well, I would say overall, we remain very encouraged by both the wins year to date, and also the funnel that we have in progress for micro-optics being considered in the design of new currencies. So, you know, year to date through the first half, we've had five new denominations won. You know, that puts us, I think, very well on track for our 10 to 15, not only given the five we've won, but what we see in the funnel. The 11 new denominations that went into production were previously won, but now they're actually going into production in this quarter. So just to provide a little more nuance on that definition.

Perfect. Really appreciate it, guys, and congratulations on the great quarter. I'll return back to the queue. Thanks, Bobby.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question will come from the line of Ian Zofino from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. This is Isaac Salas and I'm on for Ian. Thanks for taking all the questions. I think most have been answered at this point, but just to follow up on OPSEC, I think you've previously noted OPSEC to be a creative to earnings next year. If you're able to, maybe you could just provide further details on the timing of that and sort of the cadence of profitability and margins between the core currency business and OPSEC heading into next year. Thanks.

Sure. So I think, Isaac, as you reiterated, we did say it would be a creative starting, you know, next year. Obviously, I don't want to start to talk about 2025 guidance at this time, so I will defer for that. But I think the key message here for us is that we've been encouraged already in the first hundred days of how the business is performing and the integration going. You know, part of our investment thesis or a big part of that thesis is that we will walk up the adjusted EBITDA margins from that mid-teens level to the 20s over the next few years. And that's driven both by the growth of the business, but the synergies that we see. And again, our confidence in the line of sight to those synergies is very high, and that's going to drive the creative EPS impact. And we will start to see that in 2025, but I just ask, you know, we'll cover that as we do 2025 guidance.

Okay, understood. And then as a follow-up on M&A, could you just comment on the environment and what you're seeing in sort of the core or adjacent markets that you're targeting, you know, to reach that long-term target? And then as far as liquidity, do you feel that you have enough, you know, firepower to get a good-sized deal done, or would anything large be funded by additional capital? Thanks.

Yeah. Well, just in terms of the market, I would say it's largely unchanged from the last few quarters. From our perspective, we have a healthy funnel. We continue to prosecute and cultivate it. And again, I feel very confident we will be on track to do the one to two acquisitions every calendar year, as we said at the time we launched the company. All in those same themes with a very disciplined approach that I think is the key and the hallmark to our M&A, like we executed with OPSEC and like we've executed in the past, which starts with the market, reviewing the company, and making sure we can get the right valuation in a double-digit roik. You know, simply put, that's how we're going about it. I think liquidity feels good to me, 1.8 times. You know, again, we're looking at deals in that hundred, to call it $500 million range of revenue. We think we have ample firepower for those deals, and we want to be a compounder. So we want to keep this up on a pragmatic and continuous basis. And so that's what I would envision you'll be seeing from us is a continuation of M&A flow. In deals, we can get our hands around, drive rigor, drive the CBS discipline, and generate the return for shareholders. And so I would not see doing anything other than paying that through our own free cash flow and leverage no equity or any other more exotic means.

Okay, great. That's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I'm not showing any more questions in the queue. I would now like to turn it back to Aaron Sake for any closing remarks.

All right. Thank you very much, operator. Well, Q2 was another solid performance for Crayon NXT, and it gave us confidence to narrow our adjusted EPS guidance for the full year. And I especially like to thank all of our associates for their hard work, their dedication, and their focus on serving our customers. It was evident in Q2 that it starts with our people. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who joined the call today and for your questions. We very much appreciate them. So I hope you all have a great rest of your week, and thank you for your time this morning.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does include the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day. Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Crayon NXT Second Quarter 2024 earnings call at this time. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during a session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I want to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Christina Cristiano, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. I want to welcome you all to the Second Quarter 2024 earnings call for Crayon NXT. Before we begin, the slides we will reference during this presentation can be accessed via the investor relations section of our website at crane NXT.com. A replay of today's call will also be available on our website. Before we discuss our results, I encourage all listeners to review the legal notice on slide 2, which explains the risk of forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Additionally, we refer you to cautionary language at the bottom of our earnings release and in our forms 10-K and 10-Q filings pertaining to forward-looking statements. During the call, we will also be using non-GAAP numbers, which are reconciled to the comparable GAAP numbers in the tables at the end of our press release and accompanying slide presentation, both of which are available on our website at crane NXT.com in the investor relations section. With me today is Aaron Seek, our President and Chief Executive Officer. On our call this morning, we will discuss our financial results, provide an update on the OPSEC acquisition, and update our 2024 guidance. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to analysts for questions. Now let me turn the call over to Aaron.

Thank you, Christina, and good morning. We appreciate everyone joining the call today to discuss our second quarter 2024 results. Before we begin, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our NXT associates around the world for their efforts to deliver solid performance this quarter. Our second quarter performance was in line with our expectations. Sales increased 5% over the prior year, reaching 371 million driven by the acquisition of OPSEC. I'm very pleased with the operational performance of OPSEC and the progress we're making with integrating the business into NXT. Over the past three months, we've been meeting with many of our customers and the response to the acquisition has been very positive. We have clear line of sight to achieving the commercial and operational synergies that we identified when we announced the acquisition. We've hit the ground running to generate a funnel of new opportunities with our market-leading portfolio of online and physical authentication technologies and started implementing the continuous improvement fundamentals of the crane business system. We continue to be very excited about OPSEC and what it means for crane NXT in executing our strategy of providing trusted technology solutions that secure, detect, and authenticate our customers' most valuable assets. In Q2, crane currency continued to win new orders, ending the quarter with a record high backlog. We also expanded share with existing customers by issuing 11 new denominations with micro-optics technology. Given the strong backlog and visibility into timing of shipments, we're raising our full year core sales growth for currency to 3 to 5%. Additionally, CPI had -over-year core sales growth for the first time in four quarters. Inventories in the gaming vertical of normalized and the other verticals within CPI continue to perform as expected, growing amid single digits. Finally, we continue to have a very active M&A pipeline. We enter the quarter with net depth to EBITDA ratio of approximately 1.8 times, positioning us well to further expand and diversify our portfolio with ample M&A capacity. In summary, our -to-date performance and outlook give us confidence to narrow our adjusted EPS guidance to $4.20 to $4.35. Moving to slide 4, in connection with the acquisition of OPSEC, we updated our reportable segments to better align our strategy of expanding our portfolio of market-leading technologies that secure, detect, and authenticate. The security and authentication technology segment consists of the OPSEC and crane currency businesses. In the CPI segment, we're seeing continued strength in many in markets. This includes vending, where our strong performance reflects new wins with existing customers, and productivity initiatives that are improving margins. Additionally, in our services business, we continue to expand our offerings and acquire new customers with several new wins in the quarter, driving growth in recurring revenue. I'm also excited that Michael Mahan joined us this quarter as the new president of CPI. In this role, Michael is responsible for driving the CPI growth strategy, accelerating innovation, and leveraging the crane business system to drive continuous improvement and operational excellence. Michael is quickly acclimating to Crane NXT, visiting customers and traveling to our CPI sites around the world to meet our associates. I'm happy to have him on our team. As mentioned in the announcement of Michael joining, Kurt Gallo will be retiring in early 2025 after 16 years with the company. I'd like to personally thank Kurt for his service and leadership over these many years. Overall, I'm incredibly excited about the future of Crane NXT, the portfolio we're building, and the leadership team we're putting in place. We are well on track to deliver our financial targets this year. We're operating from a position of strength as we continue to execute our strategy to further expand and diversify our portfolio and drive shareholder value. I'm now going to hand the call over to Christina to walk us through our second quarter financial performance, as well as provide more details on our updated 2024 guidance.

Thank you, Aaron, and good morning again. I would also like to express appreciation to our global associates for their strong execution this quarter. Starting on slide five, as Aaron mentioned, our second quarter results were in line with our expectations. Sales grew approximately 5%, reflecting the acquisition of OPSEX security and core sales growth of approximately 1% year over year, driven by growth at CPI. Adjusted segment operating margin of 27% reflects dilution from the OPSEX acquisition and an unfavorable product mix year over year. Adjusted free cash flow was impacted by higher capex related to our continued investments in the U.S. banknote redesign program, as we discussed last quarter. Finally, adjusted EPS of $1.06 puts us on track with our full year guidance. Moving to our segment, CPI reported core sales growth of 1% in the second quarter, reflecting mid-single digit growth across all end markets outside of gaming. Adjusted segment operating margin contracted 110 basis points year over year to 30%, reflecting unfavorable product mix due to lower gaming sales, partially offset by strong pricing execution and productivity initiatives. Looking across our markets, gaming performed as expected in the quarter, with customers continuing to draw down on inventory over stock. Gaming backlog has now returned to normal levels, and we are encouraged by the new orders we are seeing from our OEM customers, which we expect to continue for the rest of the year. Outside of gaming, our other end markets are growing as anticipated, and we continue to expect full year revenue growth in the non-gaming verticals to be in the mid-single digits. Based on our backlog and the timing of new gaming orders, we expect CPI revenue for the remainder of the year to be slightly more weighted toward the fourth quarter. Moving to security and authentication technologies on slide seven, sales grew 16%, reflecting the OPSEC acquisition, with core sales up slightly as higher US sales offset lower international volumes, which were impacted by the timing of shipments. Adjusted segment operating margin was 23% in the quarter, reflecting dilution from the OPSEC acquisition and unfavorable mix in currency related to production of more lower denomination US notes in preparation for the next equipment upgrade cycle. As a reminder, this year we took some of our US paper making equipment offline during the first quarter for upgrades to accommodate the new designs and technology for the US Banknote series that commences in 2026. The first upgrade cycle went very well, and we resumed production on schedule. We will have another upgrade cycle beginning in the fourth quarter of this year, which will continue into the first quarter of 2025. OPSEC's performance in the quarter was as expected, and we are on track to achieve the full year targets we communicated last quarter. As we look ahead to 2025 and beyond, we continue to see significant opportunities for margin expansion at OPSEC using our proven crane business system to drive productivity improvement in supply chain and manufacturing processes. Overall, we have very high confidence in our full year projections for security and authentication technologies. Our international currency backlog is up approximately 65% year over year, and we now expect currency core sales growth of 3 to 5%, up from our prior range of 2 to 3%. Looking ahead, we have high visibility into the timing of our shipments and segment revenue to be slightly higher in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter. Moving to our balance sheet on slide 8, our net leverage ratio was approximately 1.8 times at the end of the second quarter, reflecting additional borrowings on our revolver to fund the OPSEC acquisition. Our substantial free cash flow generation allows us to continue to focus on investing in organic growth and paying down debt, while maintaining flexibility to deploy capital for future strategic M&A. Turning to our 2024 guidance on slide 9, based on our performance in the quarter and confidence in our outlook, we are narrowing our adjusted EPS guidance to a range of $4.20 to $4.35. In addition, given our strong currency backlog, we now expect currency core sales growth of 3 to 5%. The rest of our guidance remains unchanged. Now let me turn the call back to Aaron for closing remarks.

Thanks, Christina. In conclusion, throughout the second quarter, we continued executing our strategy and delivered another strong quarter in line with our expectations. Based on our performance, we raised the midpoint of our full-year adjusted EPS guidance and were confident in our outlook. Our strategic priorities remain unchanged, and we believe they will create long-term shareholder value. We're investing in our core businesses, driving productivity through CVS and building a strong M&A pipeline to diversify and expand the portfolio. With this focus, I'm confident we'll achieve our vision of growing crane NXT to $3 billion in revenue over the next five years. So with that, I'd like to thank you for your time this morning, and I'd also again like to thank our associates around the world for their commitment to delivering value to our customers and all of our stakeholders. With that, operator, we're ready to take our first question.

Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 101 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 101 again. Please stand by. We'll compile the Q&A roster.

One moment for our first question. Our first question will come from the line of Matt Somerville from

D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Thanks, morning. Maybe first, let's talk about the currency side of the business. I mean, the thing that probably stuck out the most to me was that the backlog there took a major step function up in the quarter well beyond last year's record level. Can you maybe talk a little bit, Aaron and Christina, as to the drivers there? How much of that is the market versus market share versus timing of new denominational introductions? And what does this mean in terms of an early read on visibility to 25 in that business?

Yeah. Well, thanks for the question, Matt. Good morning. Well, I think you're right. We're really encouraged here by the backlog in currency. And the line of sight, it really gives us here in 24. You know, that's very helpful for us in terms of timing and understanding the cadence of the second half. That's what gave us confidence to raise the sales guidance up 3 to 5%. To answer your question on the market, I don't think there's a real fundamental change in the market. You know it's lumpy in terms of tendering. And we feel very confident in our positioning with the market-leading technology. So I think this is just a continuation of our strength in the market. And as you know as well, Matt, some of these tenders come in and they're for multiple years. And that's what you also see reflected in the backlog. So while we have very good visibility in the backlog, some of those tenders are going to stay for 6 to 24 months in our backlog as we move to production. So again, a lot of confidence for the second half of the year, a lot of visibility to it. And that's what led to our raise of the sales guidance. I think it's probably premature to talk about 25 at this point in time.

Then maybe go over to CPI for a moment. You didn't tighten the guidance range there. Maybe curious as to maybe a little more detail on what you're seeing in the four main verticals. And I want you to definitely touch on retail. The performance in that business up mid-single digits during the period and kind of that outlook for the year sort of goes against at least directionally where some of the major OEMs talking about their business, noting one of which is sort of shifting their manufacturing strategy. So any perspective you may have on how that impacts or not CXT, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, sure, sure, Matt. Well, again, CPI, as Christina mentioned, performed just as expected in Q2 from our perspective. Gaming continued the burn down of the backlog. And again, we have a very good line of sight to our inventory positions at our various customers. Let me take a moment just to talk about retail. And then I'll hand it over to Christina to talk about the other end markets. You know, for us, retail, we actually saw growth through the first half of the year. And we believe very strongly the long-term macro trends in retail are still in place, which is driven by labor scarcity and the drive for retailers to implement more automation for their own efficiency and productivity. So we think that's unchanged. Now, you know, just a reminder, as I know, you know, Matt, but to others, we really go to market and retail through two channels. That includes the OEM channel, some of the names, like an NCR that I believe you're alluding to given their announcements, and also direct with retailers into custom self-checkout. So in terms of the OEM channel, we have seen a slowdown in the first part of 2024, and we expect some softness there to continue. For us, that's really been offset, though, as retailers are looking more at their own customization and configuring the systems differently and doing it themselves. And we've seen continued investment on the custom side of the market as they're moving away from standardized form factors. So when you put those two in balance, again, we've seen growth in the first half of the year. We think the long-term trends are in place, but we do see a different channel mix that's playing out in the markets, and that's globally. So maybe with that, Christine, I'll hand it to you to talk about the other verticals.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Aaron. And as Aaron said earlier, you know, outside of gaming, we saw the other verticals growing at mid-single digits, and we expect that to continue. There's been particular strength in gaming, excuse me, in vending, which has performed consistently well since COVID. And I'll also just highlight our services business, which continues to perform well, driving recurring revenue and a very high attach rate. Now, in gaming, we're encouraged by the orders we saw in Q2 from some of our OEMs. Not a significant change to what we expected, but a slightly higher Q2, and that's more of a phasing impact than an impact on the full year. But overall, we expect CPI to be in the same range that we previously communicated. So while we're encouraged by what we saw in Q2, we've left the overall sales guidance unchanged for CPI, and we believe that's prudent and appropriately risk-adjusted.

Great. Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from Bob Labick from CJS Securities. The line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions.

Good morning, Bob.

So you started, you alluded to this a little. Maybe we could dig in a little more on the OPSEC integration process. Give us a sense of, you know, where you stand in integration, any surprises you've seen, good or bad, maybe some color and customer reactions, and then the opportunities for synergies, both cost and revenue synergies looking ahead.

Yeah. Thanks, Bob. As I said in my prepared remarks, you know, we're very encouraged with the acquisition, and it's performing, and the integration is going as planned. You know, we're on track to that $80 million range for revenue in 2024, and I just reiterate the strong, positive response we've had from our customers. You know, now we're in that phase, call it 100 days in post-acquisition to really meeting with customers, building out the funnel of opportunities for both new wins but also share of wallet expansion with micro-optics. And, you know, just a reminder that that sales cycle is, you know, anywhere from 9 to 18 months as customers have to go in and update their designs and then go through a launch and qualification process. So I would say it's going just as planned with a lot of healthy excitement, and I think more to come as we announce in the quarters ahead some wins. And on the operational side, again, CBS is such a core part of our disciplined operating process. We are heavily involved in OPSEC, deploying resources and training and starting to implement many of the actions that we had line of sight to as part of our investment thesis. So, again, I feel very confident in the line of sight to the 8 million of synergies we promised by 2026 and confident we're going to get there,

Bob. Okay, super. I appreciate that color. And then kind of sticking with OPSEC and your M&A comments earlier, obviously they're in a bunch of end markets, sports media, consumer, industrial, financial services, et cetera, but there's others, pharma, food and beverage, and many more in authentication. So are those other markets organic extensions or is that part of the M&A focus? How should we think about the future M&A as it relates to what you already have with OPSEC and how it will fit?

Yeah, Bob, hey, I think you're thinking about this exactly the right way is how we're thinking about it. Our immediate focus here, just to reiterate, is to successfully integrate and operate OPSEC. That is the focus of the team. But with that said, we have a very strong funnel of M&A opportunities we're continuing to cultivate. I feel very, very confident with the leverage sitting at 1.8 as we exited this quarter that gives us ample capacity. And we want to continue a really disciplined process around that M&A. And I think your comments on our focus is, again, how we're thinking about it. We see this as a large $3 billion TAM all in this security and authentication space. It's fragmented with positive growth dynamics of mid-single digit to mid-single digit plus. And we see these opportunities for both bolt-ons of new technology into the core, as well as enhancing our exposure to different vertical markets, just a few of which you named, whether that's consumer, farmer, or government. So that's exactly where part of our M&A funnel is focused. And we feel, again, confident we were in a very good position to take action, again, doing what we said we were going to do with one to two acquisitions a year.

Super. All right. Thanks so much. Thanks, Bob.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Damian Carras from UBS. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Morning, Damian.

It's nice to hear you've been outperforming some of the market trends, especially in CPI. I was wondering if you could maybe give us a sense of the progression of orders for the CPI segment through the second quarter and into July, and maybe if you could perhaps kind of quantify what the order run rate on a dollar basis has looked like. I guess if I'm just kind of looking at the backlog and the sales numbers in the second quarter, I'm coming to something like maybe in the low 200 millions. Does that sound about right?

I think you're thinking about it in the right geography there, Damian. Again, if I think about gaming, the entire backlog of CPI, as Christina mentioned, has gotten back to where we would say are close to normal levels. There's always going to be some fluctuations quarter to quarter, but we're in the zone of where we think it's normalized. In gaming, some of the OEMs have returned to ordering. Again, that feels exactly in line with what we expected, given the visibility into the backlog, or excuse me, into their inventory levels. Now we have this line of sight to the rest of the year, to your question, that we see continuing to progress with orders slightly skewed again to Q4. I think the way you're thinking about that is directionally correct.

Okay, that's helpful. Then in the currency business, I'm presuming for the US, kind of the high watermarks the third quarter, and then it's some of the international project activity that's going to drive kind of like the sequential improvement in the fourth

quarter.

Then I just wanted to ask on that, so that equipment upgrade is going to kind of happen for Q and then into early next year. Is that going to be kind of like the last equipment upgrade, and then start thinking about kind of a pickup in the new design, the new denomination later next year for the US business? Just want to make sure we're kind of thinking about that the right way.

Yeah, why don't I take the first part and I'll hand it over to Christina for the second part of your question. So as we just think about the phasing of revenue for currency in the second half of the year, again, the build of this backlog has given us a lot of confidence in line of sight to the shipment schedule, and that's why we have the confidence to raise the sales forecast. I think when you think about the phasing, it's going to be slightly higher in Q4 than in Q3, just in terms of revenue, and again, that's just what we see in terms of customer request ship dates. So again, pretty high level of confidence on that. As it relates to the US upgrade cycle and kind of the phasing as we go forward, Christina, I'll let you comment.

Yeah, just to answer the specific question, so this cycle that will start in Q4 and continue into Q1 of next year is the last one, and it supports the entire new series, and we're on track with that program to kick off as planned. And that was aligned with our guidance and our target expectations for the full year, so no change coming from that production stoppage. It's already factored in.

I just add, Damien, on the 2025 and beyond in the new series design announcements, as we've always said, we have to allow the BEP and the Treasury to make those announcements. Obviously, we feel very, very good about our relationship with them, but they'll be making those announcements likely in 25 on the actual phasing and design of the new currency.

Terrific. This is really helpful. Thanks. I'll pass it along.

Thanks, Damien.

Thank you.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Bobby Brooks from Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my call. Hey, you know, my first question, you guys gave a little bit of color, you know, market share, on the market share trends that you've seen in CPI and those, you know, your kind of leadership position in both, you know, specifically vending have continued to stay strong. But I'm just kind of curious if we could double click on that and just, you know, get a little bit more granular. Obviously, there is some normalizations within gaming given, you know, a competitor regaining key certifications. So maybe that shows like market share shift in there, but that's more so of a normalization. But I'm just kind of curious about, you know, that and just kind of maybe breaking it down by segment within CPI. And maybe the best way is just to help compare and contrast those, you know, market share trends that you've seen within CPI now versus what you're seeing maybe a year ago.

Yeah. Well, hey, thanks for that question, Bobby. I think it does make sense. We'll go kind of vertical by vertical for you. So in gaming,

you know,

maybe I'll go back more than a year, you know, we had a really fantastic position in the market that was enhanced over the past few years as one of our competitors struggled. And we believe we've maintained that share and continue to be the provider of choice. So again, with high visibility into the major OEMs that buy our products and casinos that specify those products, we feel very good. So I wouldn't say there's necessarily a share shift that's occurred other than we've maintained and continue to be the market leader in the gaming vertical with good line of sight to how we think those orders are going to play out for the rest of the year. You know, if I go to vending, again, we, you know, we define that market from our perspective as vending machines, not convenience retail broadly. We don't include micro markets as an example in our TAM. We're really talking about vending machines and that form factor and the payments and telemetry and remote services that come along with that type of piece of equipment. So inside that market, again, we see it growing coming back off these COVID lows. Again, we've always had a very robust share in that market. We believe we've maintained that and continue to introduce new features both in cold vending, in dry good vending, but also in coffee where we have a very strong offering, particularly in Europe that we growing and implemented more here in the United States. So, you know, from how we define this market and where we play and how we expect to win, we feel very good. So maybe I'll pause there, Christina, if you want to take the other verticals.

Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, you spoke a little bit about retail earlier and so I don't know that we need to dive too much more deeply into that, but I'll say, you know, we're off to a good start this year. The first half of the year as compared to last year is doing very well and that's largely related to custom retail projects that we're working directly with either integrators or directly with our third party customers. And so projects that were delayed last year, we're now seeing coming through and that's that's off to a good start again for the full year expecting mid single digit growth there. And just, you know, overall our services business, which supports several of the verticals, has been very strong, had some solid new wins in the quarter and we expect that to continue growing at mid single digits as well.

Got it. Thank you guys. That's terrific color. And then just, I kind of want to follow back up on Matt's question earlier and just more so looking at it from a sequential view. So a hundred, you know, you guys had a hundred plus million dollar sequential increase in the security and authentication backlog. Could you just maybe flesh out how much that was acquired backlog from OPSEC and then what was the international currency mix for that? I know you talked about it being at a record high and then maybe just any, if that sequential step up in backlog, was there any benefit from new business from OPSEC that you guys have won since taken ownership or any interesting, you know, product or authentication ones, you know, mixed into that?

Yeah, I'll take that one, Bobby. And, you know, first I'll just say great execution by our currency team, you know, where we continue to win in the international currency market. And that's what's led us to increase our sales guidance for currency for the full year. In terms of the breakdown of the backlog, the majority of it is related to current international currency. And, you know, it's part of our disclosure. So your OPSEC is approximately 30 million of the backlog at the end of the quarter. This quarter, as Aaron said earlier, we had several new multi-year orders which will begin shipping this year. But that inflates, that's really the primary driver of the inflation of the backlog over last year. And that'll stay in the backlog now, you know, through 25 and some going into 2026. So, you know, overall again, the strength in our backlog gives us high confidence in the full year targets.

Got it. And then just one clarifying question. So I know you guys talk about winning 10 to 15 new international denominations a year. In the prepared remarks, I think Aaron mentioned you've issued 11 new micro-optic denominations this year. So I just want to clarify, is that 11 number, is that new international denomination wins or is that something different? And if it's something different, how many international denomination wins have you gotten thus far this year?

Yeah. Thanks, Bobby. Let me clarify that. Well, I would say overall we remain very encouraged by both the wins year to date and also the funnel that we have in progress for micro-optics being considered in the design of new currencies. So, you know, year to date through the first half, we've had five new denominations won. You know, that puts us, I think, very well on track for our target of 10 to 15, not only given the five we've won, but what we see in the funnel. The 11 new denominations that went into production were previously won, but now they're actually going into production in this quarter. So just to provide a little more nuance on that definition.

Perfect. Really appreciate it, guys. And congratulations on the great quarter. I'll return back to the queue. Thanks, Bobby.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question will come from the line of Ian Zoffino from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. This is Isaac Salas and on for Ian. Thanks for taking all the questions. I think most have been answered at this point, but just to follow up on OpSec, I think you've previously noted Oppenheimer to be a creative to earnings next year. If you're able to, maybe you could just provide further details on the timing of that and sort of the cadence of profitability and margins between the core currency business and Oppenheimer heading into next year. Thanks.

Sure. So I think, Isaac, as you reiterated, we did say it would be a creative starting, you know, 2025 guidance at this point in time. So I will defer for that. But I think the key message here for us is that we've been encouraged already in the first hundred days of how the business is performing and the integration going. You know, part of our investment thesis or a big part of that thesis is that we will walk up the adjusted EBITDA margins from that mid teens level to the twenties over the next few years. And that's driven both by the growth of the business, the synergies that we see. And again, our confidence in the line of sight to those synergies is very high. And that's going to drive the creative EPS impact. And we will start to see that in twenty five. But I just ask, you know, we'll cover that as we do twenty twenty five guidance.

Okay, understood. And then as a follow up on M&A, could you just comment on the environment and what you're seeing in sort of the core or adjacent markets that you're targeting, you know, to reach that long term target? And then as far as liquidity, do you feel that you have enough, you know, firepower to get a good sized deal done or would anything large be funded by additional capital? Thanks.

Yeah. Well, just in terms of the market, I would say it's largely unchanged from the last few quarters. From our perspective, we have a healthy funnel. We continue to prosecute and cultivate it. And again, I feel very confident we will be on track to do the one two acquisitions every calendar year. As we said at the time we launched the company, all in those same themes with a very disciplined approach that I think is the key and the hallmark to our M&A like we executed with OPSEC and like we've executed in the past, which starts with the market reviewing the company and making sure we can get the right valuation in a double digit roik. Simply put, that's how we're going about it. I think liquidity feels good to me, 1.8 times. Again, we're looking at deals in that hundred to call it $500 million range of revenue. We think we have amplifier power for those deals and we want to be a compounder. So we want to keep this up on a pragmatic and continuous basis. And so that's what I would envision you'll be seeing from us is a continuation of M&A flow. In deals we can get our hands around, drive rigor, drive the CBS discipline and generate the return for shareholders. And so I would not see doing anything other than paying that through our own free cash flow and leverage, no equity or any other more exotic means.

Okay, great. That's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I'm not showing any more questions in the queue. I would like to turn it back to Aaron's sake for any closing remarks.

All right. Thank you very much, operator. Well, Q2 was another solid performance for Crane NXT and it gave us confidence to narrow our adjusted EPS guidance for the full year. And I especially like to thank all of our associates for their hard work, their dedication and their focus on serving our customers. It was evident in Q2 that it starts with our people. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who joined the call today and for your questions. We very much appreciate them. So I hope you all have a great rest of your week and thank you for your time this morning.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.