Hayward Holdings, Inc.

Welcome to Hayward Holdings' second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. My name is Robert, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. During the question and answer session, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Maczka, Vice President, Investor Relations, and FP&A. Mr. Maczka, you may begin.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. We issued our second quarter 2026 earnings press release this morning, which has been posted to the investor relations section of our website at investor.hayward.com. There you can also find the earnings slide presentation referenced during this call. I'm joined today by Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Eifion Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, the company may make certain statements that are considered forward-looking in nature, including management's outlook for 2026 and future periods. Such statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties. including those discussed in our most recent forms 10-K and subsequent forms 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that could cause actual results to differ materially. The company does not undertake any duty to update such forward-looking statements. During today's call, the company will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures discussed on this call to the comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and the appendix to the slide presentation. All comparisons will be made on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise indicated. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Holleran.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you to Hayward's second quarter earnings call. I'll begin on slide four of our earnings presentation with today's key messages. I'm pleased to report another strong quarter. Net sales increased 6% in the second quarter and 9% through the first half with positive price realization and stable volume. This performance reflects the resilience of our installed-based aftermarket business model coupled with focused execution across the organization. Our teams are advancing strategic initiatives to strengthen our market position and drive profitable growth, even as we navigate macroeconomic, geopolitical, and inflationary challenges. We are clearly gaining traction, and I'm proud of the team's performance. During the quarter, we completed a comprehensive debt refinancing, extending our maturities, reducing our cost of capital by approximately $6 million on a full-year basis, and adding financial flexibility to support our strategic priorities. Eifion will provide further details on the refinancing in a moment. We also made further solid progress on the balance sheet, generating cash and reducing net leverage to 1.5 times The lowest level since our IPO in 2021. We achieved this while increasing share repurchases, demonstrating our confidence in the business and our commitment to disciplined capital allocation. Given the first half performance and our visibility into the second half, we are maintaining our guidance for full year 2026. We continue to expect next sales to increase approximately 5% and adjusted diluted EPS to increase approximately 9% to 13%. Turning now to slide five, highlighting our second quarter and first half results. Net sales increased 6% to $318 million in the second quarter. North America increased 9% driven by positive contribution from both price and volume as demand remained resilient across our installed-based aftermarket. Europe and the rest of the world declined 8% as certain regions continued to be impacted by macroeconomic conditions, and Geopolitical Disruption related to the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. We were pleased to see continued solid demand for some of our more discretionary product categories such as salt chlorine generators, automation and lighting. Commercial pool and industrial flow control delivered solid growth again this quarter with net sales for both businesses up double digits in the first half. Gross profit margin declined modestly in the second quarter and was approximately flat to the first half, consistent with our expectations. As previously communicated, we anticipated second quarter pressure from incremental inflation in specialty metals, freight, and resin costs before our mitigation actions are fully implemented. Importantly, margins remain near record levels. The second quarter of 2025 represented Hayward's highest ever quarterly gross margin as a public company, and second quarter 2026 was the second highest. I'm pleased with how our sales and operational teams maintain strong profitability despite these new pressures. Similarly, adjusted EBITDA margin in the first half remained healthy and consistent with the prior year as we continued to make targeted investments in product innovation and customer initiatives. Adjusted diluted EPS increased 8% to 26 cents in the second quarter. Combined with our outstanding first quarter performance, we delivered a strong first half with net sales up 9%, adjusted EBITDA also up 9%, and adjusted diluted EPS up 18%. Our performance reflects the strength and execution of our strategy. Let me highlight some of the initiatives gaining traction and helping position Hayward for sustained profitability growth on slide six. The focus of our strategy is clear. Support our customers with superior products and services to drive share gains while sharpening our operational excellence to enable profitable growth. Starting with the customer side, innovation continues to be our engine. We've increased our RD&E investment, and it's paying off with new product vitality now up to 23%. Our proprietary OmniX platform is leading the way, especially in the aftermarket, and we will introduce more OmniX-enabled product categories to expand the connected ecosystem. We're also deepening our reach with the trade through our Hayward Hub training centers. These hubs are reinforcing our position in our strongest markets by further developing existing dealer capabilities while also supporting dealer conversions in targeted growth markets. We look forward to opening our sixth center in Atlanta in the fourth quarter. We're increasingly using AI to raise the bar across the organization. One use case in customer service resulted in 98% of our North America calls now being answered within one second by an AI agent. And 80% of those calls resolved with no need for escalation to a live technical service representative. That's a better experience for our customers and greater efficiency for us. On the operational excellence side, we're staying disciplined and proactive. We're taking continued cost actions investing in automation and productivity, nearshoring and increasingly dual sourcing to mitigate tariff and geopolitical risk and driving value engineering across our processes and products. Internally, we're managing our own inventory tightly across both finished goods and raw materials and accelerating skew rationalization and product platforming. We maintain visibility in the inventory levels and sell through across our primary North America channel partners the regular communication and reporting. Current channel inventory remains consistent with seasonal patterns, including the normal second quarter reduction and is aligned with our assumptions for end market sell through and product availability. Finally, the power of us campaign reinforces all of this. This is a compelling message and is resonating across the industry. As a proud American company since 1925, approximately 90% of our products sold in the United States today are manufactured or assembled in our domestic centers of excellence. The takeaway is simple. We're driving both growth and productivity. The combination of customer intimacy and operational excellence driving market share and profitability is exactly how we intend to outperform our industry and create long-term value. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Eifion to discuss our financial results in more detail.