Gates Industrial Corporation plc

Good morning and welcome to the Gates Industrial Corporation second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's remarks, we'll conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question at this time, you'll need to press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Rich Kwas, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you, please go ahead.

Greetings and thank you for joining us on our second quarter 2026 earnings call. I'll briefly cover our non-GAAP and forward-looking language before passing the call over to our CEO Ivo Jurek, who will be followed by Brooks Mallard, our CFO. Before the market opened today, we published our second quarter 2026 results. A copy of the release is available on our website at investors.gates.com. Our call this morning is being webcast and is accompanied by a slide presentation. On this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful in evaluating our performance. Reconciliations of historical non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and the slide presentation, each of which is available in the investor relations section of our website. Please refer now to slide two of the presentation, which provides a reminder that our remarks will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the private securities litigation reform act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters that we've described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, and in other filings we make with the SEC including our Q2 quarterly report on Form 10-Q that is expected to be filed later today. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. This quarter we will be attending the Jeffries Industrial Conference and the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference both in September and look forward to meeting with many of you. Before we start, please note all comparisons are against the prior year period unless stated otherwise. And with that out of the way, I will turn it over to Ivo.

Thank you, Rich. In the second quarter, we delivered strong performance as sales came in near the high end of our guidance supported by incrementally constructive industrial and markets and contributions from our strategic growth initiatives. Sales grew approximately 7% with core revenue growth of 4.9% which enabled us to achieve record quarterly sales and adjusted earnings per share. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was above expectations led by solid improvement in our adjusted gross margin. Importantly, we believe that we are in a good position to achieve our second half adjusted EBITDA margin target outlined earlier this year. Core growth in our industrial channels was up nicely, led by double digit growth in industrial OEM with strength building as we exited the quarter. Broadly speaking, we generated year over year growth in most of our end markets during the second quarter. and book to bill remained above one. Given our solid second quarter financial results and the favorable shift in demand trends, we observed exiting the quarter. We have raised our 2026 four year guidance for core sales growth and profitability. Our updated guidance implies incrementally better performance for second half of the year relative to our initial expectations. We believe we are also on track to deliver adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.5% or higher in the second half of 2026. Brooks will provide more details on guidance later in the presentation. Please turn to slide four. Our second quarter sales were $942 million. which represented record quarterly sales for Gates. Total sales expanded 6.6% inclusive of foreign currency benefits. Core sales grew 4.9%. The underlying demand continued to improve with year-over-year growth strengthening during the second half of the quarter. We saw momentum across most of the portfolio highlighted by approximately 25% growth in personal mobility and 20% plus growth in commercial on highway. Industrial OEM sales expanded low double digits and our industrial aftermarket saw improved demand trends, which resulted in mid single digit growth. In general, the bulk of our end markets have begun to inflect positively and we are in a strong position to capitalize on the building and market momentum. Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $211 million and represented an adjusted EBITDA margin of 22.5%, modestly better than expectations. Adjusted gross margin increased by 50 basis points while we continue to make targeted investments to support our enterprise initiatives. Adjusted earnings per share increased 13% to a quarterly record of 44 cents. The growth was driven by improved operating performance and other items. On slide five, we will review our segment highlights. In the power transmission segment, Sales were $589 million and translated to over 5% core growth. The expansion was led by high single digit growth in our industrial end markets, which was driven by mid-teens growth in the industrial OEM channel globally. Power transmission industrial aftermarket increased mid single digits and supported by double digit growth in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Automotive aftermarket grew high single digits with solid growth achieved across all geographies. At the end market level, personal mobility grew in the mid 20s and commercial on highway increased similarly. Segment adjusted EBITDA margin increased 60 basis points. In the fluid power segment, sales were $353 million and increased 4.2% on a core basis. Similar to power transmission, industrial OEM sales were strong, growing double digits. Industrial aftermarket increased low single digits. Fluid power's strongest end markets were commercial on highway, which increased high teens, and Construction, which grew mid-single digits. Of note, Diversified Industrial grew mid-single digits and represented a good contributor to the segment's growth, given its relative size within the segment. We continue to grow our data center business, which expanded more than 2x versus the prior year quarter. and we anticipate sales contribution to step up in the second half as certain high value project launches occur. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the fluid power segment decreased 120 basis points primarily due to footprint realignment costs as well as targeted investments into our enterprise initiatives. I will now turn the call over to Brooks for additional comments on our results.

Thank you, Ivo. I'll begin on slide six and review our core sales performance by region. All three regions had positive core growth during the second quarter. America's grew 1.5% with low single digit growth in North America, more than offsetting a decrease in South America, which was primarily driven by soft agricultural demand. In North America, industrial OEM sales were up mid-single digits, fueled by solid growth in commercial on-highway. North American automotive aftermarket grew high single digits. Importantly, overall North America sales momentum grew as the quarter progressed, with an exit rate in the mid-single digit range. In EMEA, core sales grew 6.4%. led by double digit growth in the industrial channels and many industrial end markets. Industrial OEM sales increased at a mid-teens level and industrial aftermarket grew in the double digits. At the end market level, commercial on highway, diversified industrial, and personal mobility drove the strong growth in EMEA in the second quarter. APAC growth accelerated in the second quarter increasing 11.5 percent with China and East Asia and India delivering comparable growth led by strong double-digit growth across several industrial end markets. On slide seven, we show the primary drivers of our double-digit growth in adjusted earnings per share. Underlying operational performance and favorable foreign exchange combined to contribute two cents per share. A lower tax rate, share count, interest, and other represented three cents of adjusted earnings per share contribution. Slide eight offers an overview of our cash flow performance and balance sheet metrics for the second quarter. Our free cash flow was approximately 60 million dollars. and trailing 12 months free cash flow to adjusted net income came in at 94 percent which is above our historical average our net leverage ratio declined to 1.8 times which was a 0.4 times improvement compared to the prior year period during the quarter we repurchased approximately 22 million dollars of our stock Our trailing 12-month return on invested capital was 21.6 percent, up 30 basis points. We continue to fund high return projects that we believe will improve our growth and profitability over the mid-term. On slide nine, let's discuss our updated 2026 outlook. We are increasing our guidance for core sales growth, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted earnings per share. We anticipate our full year core sales growth to be in the range of 2.5% to 4.5%, representing a 100 basis point increase at the midpoint. We expect our full year adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $800 million to $830 million, which is a $10 million increase at the midpoint. Our full year adjusted earnings per share range is $1.62 to $1.70, a six cent increase relative to our prior guidance midpoint. Our guidance for capital expenditures and free cash flow conversion is unchanged. For the third quarter, we estimate total revenues to be in the range of $880 million to $920 million and core revenues to be approximately 5.5% at the midpoint. We anticipate our adjusted EVODA margin to increase in a range of 50 basis points to 90 basis points compared to the third quarter of 2025.

I will now turn the call back to Ivo for summary remarks. I'll summarize our thoughts and views on slide 10. First, we've generated strong top line growth in the second quarter, and we believe that we have entered the early stages of an industrial recovery. Industrial OEM schedules are generally improving, with some end markets further down the recovery curve, and industrial distributor orders are solid. We are well positioned to generate attractive growth and margin expansion as the cycle evolves. As such, we anticipate producing incrementally stronger core growth in the second half of 2026 relative to our second quarter performance. Our updated 2026 guidance implies 6% core sales growth year over year in the second half, representing a significant uptake from approximately one percent core sales growth realized in the first half of the year. Second, we are delivering on our commitment to our investors and shareholders. Our first half adjusted EBITDA margin outperformed the initial guidance we outlined on our fourth quarter 2025 earnings call in February. More importantly, we are on track to achieve an adjusted EBITDA margin of at least 23.5% in the second half of this year, putting us on a good path to achieve a mid-term margin target outlined in 2024. With the industrial markets turning positive, we intend to deliver attractive incremental adjusted EBITDA margins through the cycle. We are highly focused on accelerating our top line growth and delivering above average shareholder returns. The strategy we deployed a few years back is yielding results. Our focus on improved operational performance has resulted in significant improvement in gross margins and we are approaching our mid-term adjusted EBITDA margin target. We believe our investments in strategic initiatives support future sales outgrowth in excess of market growth rates. In our view, our strong second quarter execution and the clear inflection in our underlying and market demand trends provide a solid backdrop to deliver differentiated performance. Our balance sheet is strong. We have significant optionality to deploy capital and will be judicious and responsible. We are broadly excited about the opportunity ahead and anticipate generating significant value for our shareholders. Before taking your questions, I want to thank the 13,000 Global Gates Associates for their dedication and perseverance in meeting our customers' needs. I will now turn the call back to the operator for Q&A.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up question.

Thank you.

Our first question comes from Steve Volkman from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking the question. good morning um can we just unpack the it seems like we're sort of uh on plan here we're getting past some of these uh margin headwinds as we expected um as we think about the second half margin um how much of the improvement is is kind of these temporary headwinds going away versus um you know the the better organic growth fall through and I guess what I'm really trying to get at is is as all the dust settles you know how should we think about incrementals sort of on a more medium term basis within the kind of adjusted cost structure etc.

So I would say we're seeing the results of our footprint optimization, our restructuring, our cost optimization that's all starting to come through you know and as you said as the headwinds go away the core growth improves uh you know we expect to continue to improve margins as we said in the second half if you think about the incrementals you know for q3 you know we're implementing pricing to offset some of the oil related uh cost increases and that's going to cause a slight bit of dilution uh in q3 our incremental so we expect them to be in the 35 to 40 range we expect those to uh then move back to 45 plus as we move into Q4. And then for the first half of next year, we expect that trend to continue as the footprint optimization and the cost optimization work that we've done rolls through. And then after that, we'll update you at the end of the year on our full 2027 guide. But that's how to think about it over the next 12 months or four quarters.

great very helpful thank you and then just to follow up I was kind of surprised by EMEA up 6.4 percent that seems pretty healthy given what we're hearing from a lot of folks in that region just anything to call out relative to that growth yeah look I mean I think we have seen a pretty reasonably broad strength across our

We are well diversified and we have put the company on a trajectory to continue to deliver that growth. So the end markets that are performing quite well obviously in EMEA are automotive aftermarket, the diversified industrial expanded very very nicely and on highway expanded very nicely as well as personal mobility. So we feel pretty well about how our business is performing in Europe.

Thank you, guys. I'll pass it on.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Mike Halloran from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, morning, everyone. Hey, good morning. Hey, thanks. You know, it sounds like you guys are pretty constructive on the trajectory of your demand curve right now. You know, Ivo, maybe put this in context of history. When you guys have organizationally seen this type of thing before, you know, what does that mean? Put it in context. It's been a bit since you've seen, it seems like you've seen this kind of momentum. And so trying to get a sense of pervasiveness through the portfolio, and then what it can mean for the organization if this has legs and it seems to be that you think it does have legs.

Yeah, thanks Mike. There's a lot to unpack. Now obviously when we look backwards and we see some of the market recoveries from a historical perspective, you know, you should anticipate a reasonably solid acceleration for kind of the first four to six quarters of the recovery. We have seen a nice extension in PMIs. Obviously, that's no secret to anybody else. And what we are seeing is reasonably broad based recovery and support across the exposure that we have Indian markets. Now, obviously, not everything is in a solid shape yet. Agriculture, as an example, is still in bottoming out and troughing conditions today. But we should see a very constructive demand. And look, that's reflected in our second half guidance. We are stepping up our forecast for core growth rather substantially year over year. and we certainly believe that it's just the beginning of what we should see now let me remind you we have also done lots of work internally on self-help so we've developed nice exposure to some secular end markets that we believe will continue to deliver incremental performance on the top of the end market support that we anticipate and as I said on during my prepared remarks we feel very constructively about where the company sits presently and we are in a very good shape.

Thanks for that and then maybe some thoughts on pricing price cost environment and how that's being managed and how you think about it moving into the second half of the year.

Yeah so we've implemented We've implemented price increases to offset what we've seen from an oil and petroleum materials base increase. And so we feel good. We've got pricing in place, as I said earlier. It's a little bit diluted to our incrementals as all the pricing gets in place for Q3, and then it'll be fully in place for Q4. It's impactful, but it's not really that big of a deal when you kind of look at some of the stuff that's happened in 22, 23, 24. So it's manageable. We've got all the pricing in place. And we feel pretty good about where we stand as we move through the back half of the year. And we expect to be at least price-cost neutral in the back half of the year.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike.

Our next question comes from Dean Dre from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Dean.

Hey, maybe you can put the spotlight on personal mobility and the construction on highway because you don't typically see 20% numbers like that in those verticals. It's just, you know, what are the dynamics there? Are there any new products? Is this a catch up? You know, an inventory, sell-in, hire, just take us through that. It'd be great. Thanks.

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Dean. I think that we spoke on our last call about the rebound in order trends on highway. Let me start with that, please. So, as you start seeing some reports coming through, very significant improvement in Class A truck orders. for the industry in North America in particular, they were up a couple hundred percent year on year. So very significant recovery there. The class five and seven truck orders are also trending nicely, positively. So we feel that the market has definitely inflected as we anticipated. And we have been the beneficiary of that performance. On personal mobility side, look, maybe a year or so ago, we have committed that personal mobility should deliver kind of a mid 20% to 30% core growth for next couple of years that has been driven through our effort penetration, new design wins, broadening of our product portfolio across significant a broader based set of applications and so you see that playing itself out and you know we have not really changed our mind about delivering 25 to 30 percent core growth in personal mobility in the next couple of years and we're just on point to do just that.

Great and second question is just to be clear I'm not expecting the next analyst meeting to be in Bermuda but I'd love to know just some more specifics around the re-domicile move. Our understanding is England and Wales had some pretty onerous restrictions on your capital allocation flexibility for buybacks and dividends and so forth. But just take us through what we should know about the re-domicile and what changes, if anything, that might entail being in Bermuda now. Thanks.

Well, the biggest change is we don't have to do two annual reports and IFRS reporting and things of that nature anymore. So it's a pretty good thing for us folks on the accounting side. It's going to make life easier. So it's going to eliminate some costs. It's going to eliminate some kind of bureaucracy that we have to do in terms of filing annual reports in the UK and in the US.

um you know having audits in the uk and in the us things like that and then and so it's going to make it a lot easier from that perspective you know you want to do the capital allocation yeah no look uh i think that uh the you know the overall um governance environment is getting more complex globally and we just felt that as a as a north american company uh north american based company we wanted to make sure that Our shareholders have shareholder rights that are very well aligned to the ones of companies that operate in this country. And, you know, I think that we accomplished that by redomiciling in Bermuda, where the governance is very, very similar to the governance of companies that are domiciled in the US. So I would say that between those two attributes, those were the predominant drivers. And then obviously, capital allocation, Thanks, Dean.

Our next question comes from Jeff Hammond from KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, guys. If you had given me the growth rates to put on the map, I would have been completely wrong. That was not what I was expecting. Just on the North America comment about going to mid single digit, is that just kind of timing of cycle inflection or would you say 2Q is still a little muted around ERP and facility consolidation versus the other geographies. And if you look to the second half map, would it look pretty balanced across the three geographies? Thanks.

No, thanks for the question, Jeff. I would say that North America demand has been improving very, very nicely as the quarter progressed. and so you know you should almost think that we were exiting June kind of you know already in a mid single digit growth rate and I would say that North America or North America in particular was more impacted by ag which is still weak and by automotive OEM that production output obviously has not been terrific in North America but that has inflected by strength that we have seen in some of the other exposure like diversified industrial, personal mobility, construction and such and on highway obviously as I mentioned as an answer to Dean's question so we feel quite well about that inflection and we believe that that's going to continue to accelerate in the second half of the year. Certainly all the indications are there. um south america on the other side was reasonably weak and that's predominantly driven by the fact that we have a large exposure to agriculture and market there and that has been you know reasonably weak it has had a couple of very strong years in 24 and 25 and it's uh it's an inflection uh in 26. okay good color evo um just on the the short cycle recovery I'm just wondering if there's any want or visibility that your distributors are doing anything in terms of you know wanting to restock or are they wanting to run lean and this is just all sell through thanks yeah right now Jeff uh we see just sell through uh we have seen a very nice recovery uh without oe customers and as we monitor our channel partners our channel partners in general Yeah, kind of delayed one to two quarters as the recoveries take a firm hold. So I would anticipate that kind of end of towards the end of this year or beginning of next year, that should be very supportive for continuation of growth into 27. But presently, the channel partners are being pretty judicious and inventories are reasonably lean. They're in good place. and we don't see any significant rebound that would be restocking driven. Certainly, we haven't seen that globally yet.

Okay. Appreciate the call. Thanks, Seth.

Our next question comes from Andy Koplowitz from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Andy. Ivo, your health performance in Asia has continued to be relatively significant. Maybe you can give more color there into what's going on. I think you said China and East Asia about the same growth. What do you think about the durability of the strength you're seeing? Is it sort of more your self help or is it just the markets there being pretty strong?

Look, our teams are executing extremely well in Asia, not just in China, but also in East Asia and India. We have put a strategy in place to capitalize on, frankly, on the broad-based industrial activities that you see in those regions. We are well exposed to all of those. And frankly, outside of maybe energy, which we have a very little exposure to in Asia, everything has seen really a very, very decent performance. I'm quite optimistic about the fortunes in Asia for our company and certainly expect that we will continue to outperform our peer set as well as the underlying end markets there.

And then Brooks, could you give us a little more call on the impact on fluid power margin back in Q2? I think you had cited footprint realignment costs, investments in R&D and commercial front end costs. How would those impacts trending in the second half of 26. I know you said you're confident in 70 base points of year-over-year improvement for the company in Q3. Does fluid power trail power transmission a little? Like, how should we think about that?

Yeah, so, you know, as we said at the beginning of the year, and, you know, we reiterated, you know, in our Q1 call, you know, the footprint optimization is almost entirely around the fluid power business. Between that and some of the investments we're making and and some of the enterprise initiatives. That's what drove the second quarter margin compression. That was expected. It was embedded in our guidance. Going forward, that should normalize and we don't expect to see, we expect to see that to continue to expand, you know, kind of along with the company margins as we move forward. So, you know, as I said, we knew that was coming. We telegraphed it, we highlighted it and it should be, Nothing to see as we move forward. Helpful.

Thanks, Annie.

Our next question comes from Chris Snyder from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. I wanted to ask about the ERP dynamic in the first half. I think you guys called out maybe like a 250, 300 basis points headwind in Q1, if I remember. I think you talked to maybe some some opportunity for modest catch up here in Q2 just wondering if that came through and how it contributed to that five percent organic growth number then do you guys um anticipate any further catch up into the back half of the year thank you yeah so so it was you know kind of de minimis to the overall you're less than 100 basis points to the overall company in terms of catch up when you think about EMEA

We're about six and a half percent core growth. It was maybe about 200 basis points tailwind as we caught up in Q2. There'll be a slight bit of catch up as we move through the back half of the year, but nothing meaningful. And, you know, we continue to see a little bit of SG&A headwinds. That was when you think about year over year headwinds. We saw some, you know, hypercare headwinds in Q2. Those again should go away in the second half. We're operating normally.

as we enter the second half of the year so we feel very good about the implementation how it's gone and then how things are going to be moving forward thank you I appreciate that and and I think earlier you were talking about some better price realization into the back half um you know following some of the actions I guess put in place in q2 um I guess I wanted to maybe get some color on how you think cost inflation tracks to the back half. You know, you guys have, you know, resin exposure. I imagine there was some, you know, cost inflation there in Q2, Q3. But just kind of wondering, like, is that building off Q2 into the back half? Or could that actually be easing as we look into the end of the year, just kind of given some of the movements in the global commodity prices? Thank you. Well, it's not easing.

I think that the volatility of oil prices has kind of kept the cost increases that we've seen either stable or maybe slightly moving up. So we don't expect to see any relief. Now, we put pricing in place, as I said earlier, to completely offset, at least completely offset the cost increases that we've seen around oil-related products. We didn't see any real impact in Q2 because we were working through our lower cost inventory. And the higher cost inventory doesn't really come into play until Q3, which is how we tried to match up our price increases as we move forward. So we've got price increases in place to make sure that we're in good shape. Pricing is something we think we do pretty well. We can get price increases out relatively quickly.

um we typically have some time to work through them and so we feel comfortable about where we are from a price cost perspective all makes sense thank you very much thanks Chris our next question comes from Brendan Shea from JP Morgan please go ahead your line is open hi good morning thanks for taking my question um I'd just like to touch a little bit more on your confidence in the second half acceleration so can you just walk us through how much of that anticipated second half acceleration is already visible in your order book given you have a book to bill above one times and then you know how much of it is dependent more on continued demand improvement and sort of where you're seeing the most and least visibility yeah sure look um we uh as I as as as I've indicated we have seen uh strong bookings performance uh you know I would think

um you can think about kind of a uh high high single digits year-on-year bookings growth in q2 so we have seen you know very you know very reasonable strength I would say that uh that continued through July uh so we you know we feel very confident that uh second half will continue to track you know in accordance with the trajectory that we have we have anticipated we've embedded in our guidance we see very significant strength in personal mobility we are ramping programs in support of our data center applications that we have been specified on so you know we do have some level of visibility to the overall underlying demand and um you know in a way we've built a little bit of a backlog in q2 as that revenue start uh accelerating so um you know decent level of visibility from where we sit great thank you um and then just one more for me please so you've mentioned acceleration of strategic initiatives to help you uh outgrow the overall market over the medium term

Can you just highlight, you know, if you could, just two or three of the initiatives you think will most meaningfully differentiate your growth and just widen that gap, please? And then actually, how invest, measure progress against it, please.

Yeah, no, absolutely. One of, you know, one of the big initiatives that we have been speaking about for a while has been an initiative around personal mobility and, you know, swapping out industrial chain for our Gates belt drives. you know obviously that's been growing very very nicely it's growing of 25 to 30 percent from a meaningful pace and we you know we certainly have a line of sight of delivering that level of growth over the next couple of years on forward basis we've spoken a number of occasions about our exposure to data centers and you know while that is still a reasonably small Thank you very much. um ramping up our revenue gem is in our industrial water pumps that go in the applications uh in the data centers uh we're now in process of actually ramping up our first uh sizable program with a major uh us-based server manufacturer as we speak so we anticipated that's going to start delivering a nice amount of incremental revenue for us in the second half of the year We've spoken about industrial chain to belt conversions that are very similar in nature to what we have done with personal mobility. So I'd say those are probably the three of the most meaningful secular type opportunities that we feel a high degree of confidence that will give us an incremental above market growth rate that is meaningful for our company.

Thank you. Appreciate the call.

Our next question comes from David Razo from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. My question is related to margins between the segments and auto replacement. By the fourth quarter, do we expect FP margins to surpass PT? And then on the auto replacement, the growth's been pretty impressive. I'm just trying to make sure I understand how much of that is the underlying market and how much is it related to recent wins? and just you know just trying to think through that growth rate if there's some comp issue related to some of the timing of the wins because that obviously I'm correct me if I'm wrong I would assume that's some of your highest margin business within PT.

Look I'm going to stay away from being too predictive on forward-looking margins. We don't really give forward-looking margins on product lines. I will say we do expect uh you know fluid power to normalize um you know in the second half there is some you know footprint optimization uh that's going to help fluid power but there's stuff we're working on um on power transmission that's going to help as well so we expect both product lines to continue to improve uh their margin profile as we move forward yeah and um I would say that we have done uh our teams have done a rather nice job

in automotive aftermarket over the last certainly two, three years. We spoke about some market share gains last year that has washed itself out in the comps. So actually our comps are reasonably difficult on a forward-going basis, taking into account that step-up that we have seen last year. And we still delivered mid-single-digit core growth with automotive aftermarket business. So that business is performing quite well globally. and we certainly anticipate that that business should be you know in a very normalized type uh run rate delivering mid uh low to mid single low to mid single digit growth rates between now and kind of the next two to three years so i i hope that that uh that color is helpful for you that is helpful but so you've anniversary the wins and you were still able to do mid single in the in the second quarter for auto replacement that is correct that's great okay and I know I'm generalizing here a little bit but given its replacement I would assume that's some of your highest margin revenue within PT look as we as we indicated uh we have profitable business across all of our channels you know this is not kind of like an airspace type business we are you know they're very proud of our OEM margins uh just as much as uh you know uh we obviously are proud of our aftermarket business margins but It is somewhat more positive than the OE exposure. And we anticipate certainly that that's going to be accretive. And look, we've indicated that we have a reasonably nice step up in profitability in the second half of the year as well. We've indicated that we will be in that 23% plus at minimum. And so I think that you are seeing the fruit of diligence and effort by our global teams not only to execute on things that we can control operational performance enterprise initiatives, but also favorable performance across the markets.

That's helpful. Thank you very much. Thanks, Sid.

Our next question comes from Nigel Coe from Wolf Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah. Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks for the details here. Brooks, can you just remind us how much cost capture is falling into the second half of the year? Prior framework and then how much is then rolling into the first half of next year?

How much what?

Cost saving, restructuring saving, corporate consolidation, etc.

Oh yeah, so on the cost saving side, we've done a lot of work, as I said before, we've done a lot of work on improving margins through our footprint optimization through our cost realignment through restructuring and you know the 23 and a half you know embeds a lot of that or you know all of that in its in its forward-looking forecast right now looking at the meaningful inflection that we've seen in demand especially on the industrial side we're balancing Our footprint optimization and how quickly we move versus making sure we have plenty of capacity in place to take care of the customer. So we expect to see those benefits roll through over a little bit longer period. So I would say to the end of 27. Now that doesn't change our margin outlook at all. In fact, you know, if you look at our margins, we're actually at the midpoint a little bit north of 23.5% when you look at when you look at the back half, but so I would say it's pretty evenly spaced out over time and we're going to manage that footprint optimization along with the customer service and capacity side of things to make sure we take full advantage of the upcycle we're seeing right now.

Okay, we'll follow up offline now. Then obviously EMEA really good performance in the quarter. I'm assuming there was a little bit of shift from 1Q to 2Q with ERP. But I'd be more curious, Ivo, if you could maybe just spell out what benefits you're getting post-ERP transition in terms of day-to-day operations, working capital management, etc. And do you think that means that you get better growth in Europe?

Look, Nigel, I think that we are still so early on post-implementation. We are just one quarter out. My sense is that we will never have to talk about the implementation because we are done and we are just now focusing on optimization. I believe that we will get nice benefits as we roll into 27, gives us the opportunities to optimize our working capital, gives us better opportunities to track our inventories and match our manufacturing activity to what we are seeing from the underlying perspective in the end markets. so we will see more benefits but I would say that you know we've done a lot our teams have done a lot in Europe to drive penetration market share gains and I think that you are seeing some of that accrued in our results you're seeing terrific performance in personal mobility you know that business has been growing very very nicely our diversified industrial business has been growing very nicely the OE penetration on highway and and commercial construction are quite okay as well. So we believe that the penetration, the performance, the focus on broadening our exposure in Europe is the right strategy. And we don't certainly believe that we will always grow mid to high single digits in Europe, but we certainly feel pretty well about the midterm prospects for our business there and frankly globally.

Yes, and just a very quick follow-on. I mean, Brooks, you don't like to give segment margin details, but as you look into 27, is there any reason why FP margins would be any significantly different to PT?

Again, look, I think we're going to see FP normalize, which will put it back closer to PT as we move to the back half of the year, and then we have significant margin improvement opportunities on both sides. and so they should both improve about the same rate. There's nothing structurally different about the businesses that should cause one to be significantly better or worse than the other. So we would anticipate kind of a return to normalization of FP and then a rate of improvement that's very similar on both sides.

Okay, that was three questions delivered there. Thanks, Will. Thanks, Nigel.

Our last question comes from Jerry Revich from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, hi, good morning, everyone. Brooks, I wonder, given the really good margin momentum that you folks are building over the course of this year, it looks like your exit rate, and midpoint math is dangerous, but it looks like the exit rate is going to be somewhere in the 24% range, and you folks have outlined cost savings coming in 27% versus 26%. Is the 24.5% margin target that you laid out back at the 24 Analyst Day, is that within the possible range? I know the market's been weaker for a while, but it feels like you've got the underlying momentum. And if you're still expecting incremental improvement, 27 versus 26, it feels like 24.5% margins might be feasible in 27. Can you just touch on the puts and takes around that place?

Thanks for the question, Jerry. That's definitely how we are thinking about that. And I think that we have spoken about being on the trajectory of travel, despite the fact that the markets have really not been supportive for us over the last two years since 2024 CMD. So we've done a lot with this franchise. We are positioning it to outperform, deliver meaningful performance for our shareholders. And we feel well where we fit. You know, as I also indicated, we don't believe that 24.5% is some magic endpoint, and we will provide update as we start to think about the next CMD likely in 2027.

Okay, super. And separately, you know, we're thinking back to the 22-23 timeframe, you know, lead times got blown out for a lot of categories, and we're running pretty heavy on overtime. Can you just update us on...

how your footprints evolved since then and give us a sense for what lead times look like now given the acceleration and then demand sure I mean we've done a lot again with that business we've spoken about the footprint realignment positioning ourselves to a position where we have a better access to labor direct labor in particular we have accomplished that we have a number of projects that are still in in production ramp up so we feel reasonably well now the demand inflection that we see is meaningful and we will monitor our lead times very very carefully and ensure that we are lock and step with you know some of the demand that we see from our customers on forward-going basis thanks okay thanks Jerry

We have no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Rich Kwas for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone. Appreciate your participation. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out and we'll get back in touch. Thanks. Have a great day and great weekend.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.