Envista Holdings Corporation

Hello, my name is Chloe and I will be your conference call facilitator this afternoon. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Invista Holdings Corporation's second quarter 2026 earnings results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, please press star to the number one on your keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star and the number two. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Jim Gustafson, Vice President of Investor Relations at Invista Holdings. Mr. Gustafson, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon. Thanks for joining Invista's second quarter 2026 earnings call. We appreciate your interest in our company. With me today are Paul Keel, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Eric Hammes, our Chief Financial Officer. Before I begin, I want to point out that our earnings release, the slide presentation supplementing today's call, and the reconciliations and other information required by SEC Regulation G relating to any non-GAAP financial measures provided during the call are available on the investor section of our website, www.investico.com. The audio portion of this call will be archived in the investor section of our website later today under the heading Events and Presentations. During the presentation, we will describe some of the more significant factors that impacted year-over-year performance. The supplemental materials describe additional factors that impacted our results. Unless otherwise noted, references in these remarks to company-specific financial metrics relate to the second quarter of 2026. and references to period-to-period increases and decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year. During the call, we may describe certain products and solutions that have applications submitted and pending certain regulatory approvals or are available only in certain markets. We will also make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events and developments that we believe, anticipate or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our SEC filings, and actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul.

Thank you, Jim. Good afternoon and welcome, everyone. On today's call, I'll kick us off with a summary of our Q2 performance. Eric will then take us through the numbers in more detail, and I'll wrap things up with some closing thoughts before opening it up for Q&A. In the second quarter, we continued our momentum in executing on our growth and operational plans, delivering a strong first half to the year with core growth of just over 7%. The dental market continued to show its characteristic resilience. as patient demand for dental care remained stable despite macro pressures. For the second quarter, Invista posted a 5% core growth, delivering balanced growth across both reporting segments and all major geographies. SPARC once again grew double digits. Consumables and diagnostics were up high single digits, and implants and total ortho were up low single digits. Our continued growth and focus on operational excellence led to another quarter of both gross and EBITDA margin expansion, up 70 and 230 basis points respectively. A strong top line converted to even stronger earnings growth, with adjusted EBITDA up 28% and EPS growing 58%. We also had strong free cash flow conversion in the quarter, coming in at 158%. Alongside this, we purchased 2.4 million additional shares in Q2. And rounding out slide four, based on our strong first half performance and continued momentum, we're raising our full year guidance. Our updated 2026 expectations are now for core growth to grow 3.5 to 4.5%, adjusted EBITDA to grow 11 to 14%, and adjusted EPS of $1.50 to $1.55. Let's now turn to progress we made in the quarter in support of our three core priorities of growth, operations, and people. Starting with growth, we delivered continued broad-based performance across the portfolio, with balanced contributions coming from both reporting segments, all major geographies, and volume and price. In terms of segment performance, core growth in equipment and consumables was 8.5%, as both diagnostics and consumables were of high single digits. Core growth in specialty products and technologies was up over 3%, with Spark again growing double digits, but brackets and wires down high single digits, impacted by a strong prior year comp that benefited from customers buying ahead of announced tariff and price activity. Implants grew low single digits in line with the markets. Geographically, North America, Europe, APAC, and Latin America all grew nicely, with new products continuing to play an important role, and I'll provide further detail on this in just a moment. Turning to operations, we continue to see widespread benefits from our InVista business system. Improving manufacturing productivity helped drive our gross margin expansion, and when combined with sustained G&A productivity, adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 230 basis points. We further reduced our effective tax rate in Q2, contributing to the very strong EPS growth that I mentioned earlier. And with respect to people, we continue to advance our high-performing continuous improvement culture through numerous customer, employee, and charitable events around the world. I had the good fortune to participate in several of these, including an InVista Smile project mission to the Dominican Republic where we treated approximately 1,500 patients, continuing to live our long-standing purpose of partnering with clinicians around the world to improve patients' lives. Now coming back to the central role that new product innovation is playing in our growth, slide six touches on three of the new product launches we had during the quarter. We covered some implants and diagnostics new products on the Q1 call, so we'll focus on consumables and ortho today. We had two important launches in our consumables business, one in endodontics and one in general dentistry. Zenseal Probe is an all-in-one bioceramic endodontic sealer. The product category is used in most root canal procedures, which are the largest segment within the billion-dollar-plus endodontic category. This solution is used to close gaps between filling material and the canal wall, and this particular product is novel in two respects. First, the flowable bioceramic formulation creates an alkaline environment that helps block bacterial formation, a central objective of the procedure. Second, the product is delivered through specially engineered tips that improve access in complex anatomies while also reducing material waste by roughly a third. resulting in improvements in both clinical efficacy as well as efficiency. DemiPro is a lightweight cordless curing light. Curing lights are broadly used across many restorative dental procedures. This solution is ergonomically designed to reduce fatigue while also improving access by way of a 360 degree rotatable tip. Our consumables business has been consistently gaining share across the last several quarters. and we expect these two innovations to further build on that momentum. In our orthodontics business, we've spoken a fair bit about how we've been leveraging our digital capabilities to consistently take share in clear aligners. Wormco Digital Bonding, or ODB, uses much of the same technology, but on the bracket and wire side. When we first launched this platform in 2023, we did so with our market-leading Stamen Ultima system, In Q2 of this year, we expanded coverage of ODB to all of our bracket systems, further solidifying our position as the only scaled player in the market, offering complete solutions in both aligners and fixed orthodontics. New product innovation has long been a hallmark of Invista, having created numerous important categories in dentistry across the years, such as dental implants, passive self-wagging brackets, and digital treatment planning. Over the last two years, we've materially ramped investments in new product development and commercialization. It's exciting to see the positive impact that these investments are making for all our stakeholders, customers, colleagues, our communities, and our shareholders. Having provided an overview of the quarter, I'll turn the call over to Eric to walk us through the numbers in more detail.

Thanks, Paul. In the second quarter, we delivered sales of $731 million. Four sales in the quarter increased 5% with FX in recent acquisitions combining to add an additional 200 basis points. As Paul noted, we delivered positive growth in both reporting segments with well-balanced performance across our businesses and geographies and strong contribution from both volume and price. Due to adjusted growth margin was 55.1%, an increase of 70 basis points versus the prior year. Volume, Price, Productivity, and FX all contributed to the year-on-year improvement. We continued to increase investments in sales and marketing as well as R&D in the quarter. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA increased by 28% year-over-year, with margins for the quarter of 14.7%, up 230 basis points year-on-year. As we've talked about on previous calls, The healthy growth margins of our business enable our ability to invest for the future while delivering profitable growth. Working further down the table, adjusted EPS in the quarter was 41 cents, growing 58% compared to the same quarter of last year. Our non-GAF tax rate was 25% in Q2, better than the expectations we had entering the year. We've executed on a number of important initiatives over the past many quarters to reduce our tax rate, which are reflected in our year-to-date results. We now expect the 2026 full-year rate to be around 26%, about two points lower than our initial guidance for the year, and significantly below prior year. Rounding out slide seven, Q2 free cash flow with $105 million, A $29 million increase over the second quarter of last year. This increase was driven by improved profitability as well as the $13 million recovery related to IEPA tariffs paid in 2025. We continue to expect free cash conversion for 2026 to be approximately 100% of adjusted net income. As noted in our Q2 release, while the IEPA tariff refunds do benefit free cash flow, They're excluded from Q2 adjusted earnings as the refunds are not part of regular operations. Now let's turn to two bridges to help break down our year-on-year results, beginning with sales. Core revenue grew 5% in the quarter, and total revenues grew just over 7%. Increased sales volume was the largest single contributor, driving $17 million of the sales increase and reflecting a return on our investments over the past two years. Net pricing added $12 million, balanced well across our businesses and geographies. The weaker U.S. dollar year over year contributed about $11 million. Note, on a sequential basis, foreign exchange rates have recently stabilized. Park deferral tailwinds contributed $5 million of year-on-year growth, This is the final quarter that we expect any meaningful impact from the SPARC deferral changes made back in mid-2024. And finally, acquisitions completed over the past year contributed $4 million in sales. Our acquisition of Versa, the Osseo densification technology we discussed last quarter, represents the largest driver of acquisition-related growth. Slide 9 shows the components of the $24 million year-on-year increase in adjusted EBITDA. Price contributed $12 million. Foreign exchange rates also contributed $12 million. This reflects a small benefit from translation and a larger impact from reduced year-on-year transactional FX losses. As you recall, in mid-2025, we began hedging our balance sheet to reduce the net impact from quarter to quarter exchange rate changes. Volume and mix combined for an $11 million improvement reflecting the strong gross margins across our portfolio. Net productivity delivered a $5 million benefit with EBS and other initiatives more than offsetting input cost inflation. Q2 tariff costs were similar to recent quarters but an increase of $5 million versus Q2 of 2025. As we've communicated over the past year, we continue to more than offset growth tariff costs through supply chain, G&A and pricing actions. We expect quarterly tariff costs to be similar in the second half with recently announced Section 301 levies effectively replacing the prior tariffs. Finally, as Paul mentioned, we continue to invest in sales, marketing and R&D to drive future growth, an amount of $11 million in Q2. All in, our adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter was 14.7% of 230 basis points over last year. Turning to segment performance, revenue in specialty products and technology grew nearly 6% year-on-year, with core sales up 3.1%. In orthodontics, Spark again delivered double-digit growth Thank you for joining us today. with a 120 basis point improvement in margin rate. Both businesses had positive price capture. Moving to equipment and consumables, poor sales in the quarter increased 8.5% versus prior year with high single digit growth in both consumables and diagnostics. Our consumables business continues to deliver well across the portfolio, driven both by innovation and good price performance, Diagnostics was particularly strong in North America, posting yet another quarter of above-market growth. Here again, growth was broad-based across the business, as consistent innovation in equipment and software is combined with growth in services to meet customer needs for comprehensive solutions. Adjusted operating profits increased 25% year-on-year, with operating margins up 250 basis points. through and by strong pricing and volume benefits, as well as the FX tailwind that I mentioned previously. Now I'll turn to cash flow and our balance sheet. Q2 free cash flow was $105 million, an increase of about $29 million from the second quarter of last year, primarily as a result of improved profitability. This in turn resulted in strong free cash flow conversion of 158%, including $14 million of invested CapEx during the quarter. Our balance sheet remains strong and stable with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 0.7 times. Our balance sheet continues to provide welcome flexibility as macroeconomic uncertainty remains high. In Q2, we continued to return cash to shareholders as we purchased approximately 2.4 million shares of our stock at an average price of $24 per share. As Paul mentioned previously, we are both raising and narrowing our guidance ranges. Our new guidance for the full year 2026 is 3.5% to 4.5% core growth, 11% to 14% adjusted EBITDA growth, adjusted EPS of $1.50 to $1.55, and free cash flow conversion of approximately 100%. Let me provide a couple details underlying this guidance. You'll notice that we expect second half revenue growth to be lower than the first half. This reflects the calendar impact that we discussed on the Q1 call, where our first quarter had four extra selling days over Q1 2025, and Q4 will have four fewer. As a result, we expect Q4 core growth to be flat to slightly down. Absent the billing day effect, we expect Q4 core growth to be in line with our full year guidance range. Excluding China VBP, we expect price capture to remain strong in the second half. With respect to China VBP, our revised guidance assumes both VBP1 for ortho and VBP2 for implants to take place in the second half. The process is now underway for both ortho and implants. As for the earnings cadence, we expect EBITDA growth across both Q3 and Q4 to be roughly in line with sales growth for each quarter. As noted previously, we expect our full-year tax rate to be approximately 26% of adjusted pre-tax income. Overall, we've performed well in the first half of the year, and our continued momentum gives us confidence that we expect to drive solid top-line growth in 2026 and even faster profit growth. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Paul. Thank you, Eric.

Now, before I wrap up our prepared remarks, I'll note that we recently announced an investor day coming up in about six weeks on Thursday, September 17th. The event will include an update on our progress executing the value creation plan that we laid out in March of 2025, as well as some insights into innovation priorities for our four main businesses. We'll provide an opportunity for you to hear from several members of our leadership team, including Eric and myself. And details can be found on our investor website. We hope you'll be able to join us. A few closing thoughts on the quarter before we open it up for your questions. The global dental market continues to demonstrate its characteristic resilience, even in the context of ongoing macro uncertainty. Specific to Invista, We again delivered balanced growth across our portfolio with strong performance in both reporting segments and all major geographies. Our improved execution helped convert 5% core revenue growth into 28% adjusted EBITDA and 58% EPS growth, while also allowing us to continue investing for the future. Behind strong first half performance and continued momentum, we're raising our full year outlook for core sales growth Adjusted EBITDA, and Adjusted EPS. And finally, and most importantly, I'll close by recognizing the skill, effort, and commitment of the global INVISTA team. Well done, everyone. That completes our prepared remarks for today. We'll now open it up for your questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. And to withdraw your question, please press star, then the number two. Our first question comes from the line of John Block from Stifel. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks, guys, and good afternoon.

I'll start with maybe the E&C segment. This was Invista's fifth straight quarter of high single-digit, low double-digit growth for E&C. It's certainly a step up from the past performance for this segment. So, Paul or Eric, I'm just curious if you could speak to, is this faster growth driven by a market upturn, or is it more specific to Invista factors like share gains, new products, et cetera? Thanks.

Hey, John, thanks for the question. I'll start it off, and I'm sure Eric will jump in with whatever I miss. To start, you're absolutely right. Our E&C segment is delivering consistently faster growth, and I think I would point to at least three contributors that are supporting the trend. First, with respect to the market, we are benefiting from some tailwinds in these businesses. as consumable product support procedures that are typically covered by insurance. This segment tends to be better insulated from macro volatility. And so on a relative basis, it outperforms. And since we have a strong position in consumables, we benefit along with that. A little bit different with respect to diagnostics. After the post-COVID downturn, that market was in contraction for a couple of years and has now returned to growth. As we're a leader in this category, we benefit from that rising tide. Now, on top of the underlying market support, we're also clearly gaining share in both consumables and diagnostics. And that has been the case now for several quarters. We estimate that the markets grew sort of mid single digits in the first half. And as you noted in your question, you know, our business has been growing more like high single digit to low double digit rates. Now, there's, of course, a number of commercial and operational initiatives that underpin this, but I would, again, underline new product activity as a particular contributor. Maybe thirdly, I'd also note that the broader benefit we get from having a well-balanced portfolio, macro uncertainty, of course, has a bigger impact on more elective categories, you know, like implants, and we feel that. But for us, the impact is offset by our similarly strong positions in less sensitive categories, like surgical loops, restoratives, infection prevention, and the like. And we expect that as consumer confidence rebuilds, particularly here in the U.S., that we'll benefit from our commensurately strong positions in ortho and implants. So both of those businesses are growing for us at or above market rates. But as conditions improve from a market perspective, we expect to get a helpful sort of incremental tailwind. I should probably also note that a similar diversification plays out geographically. On a relative basis, the North American market is a bit softer today. And so, you know, we experienced that. But we also have good positions in Europe, APAC, and Latin America. and these markets are currently healthier on a relative basis. So just as we expect consumer confidence to improve helping implants and ortho, we expect the North American dental market to rebound as it always has and will benefit from that. So let me pause there to see if Eric has anything more to add, but we appreciate the question. We understandably get a lot of interest in our ortho and implants businesses. due to their size and strategic importance. But consumables and diagnostics are also central to our broader portfolio strength. So it's important that we underline their continued progress. Eric, anything more to add?

No, nothing more. I think that's comprehensive. It was a great quarter for E&C.

Yeah, certainly was comprehensive. I'll try to ask maybe a quicker, tighter second one. For VBP1 and VBP2, I just want to think about this at a really high level for 26 headwind and maybe 27 tailwind. In other words, if the timing holds for 2H, and I understand that that's probably a big if, but if that timing holds at a high level, is this a dilutive event for both ortho and implants specific to 26 and an accretive event or called tailwind in 27? Just at a high level, any way to size that or think about that? Thanks, guys.

Let's tag team this one. First, I'll just start with what the new news is on VBP, and then Eric can have specific thoughts on how that will play out moving forward. So first, again, the new news, we have heard now that both the Ortho 1.0 and Implants 2.0 processes are underway. We expect them to complete in the second half. You'll remember on the Q1 call, there was still uncertainty around that. As Eric noted in his prepared comments, we have incorporated that new news into our updated guidance. On previous calls, you know, we've talked about VBP. And on balance, it has been a positive for Invista. In the first VBP for implants, we did see a material price decrease. It was around, you know, 45-ish percent. And gross margins also compressed as a consequence. But volumes more than doubled. So net-net, total gross margin dollars increased and our market position improved. So now as we look forward to the two VBPs here in the second half, they're similar but a little bit different. Starting with orthodontics, this is VBP1. So we think we'll have a similar price compression as what we saw in VBP1 for implants. And then we expect market share gains. The way these things work is that the large market share players going in, you know, if you're willing to accept that the price concessions, you tend to get even stronger position coming out. With respect to implants, though, it's a little bit different because this is a VVP2. The price compression will be much smaller. We're expecting around 10 to 15 percent. So let me pause there and see if Eric has thoughts on how that plays out across second half and into 2017.

Yeah, I think a couple points, John, at a high level on the growth. So in the first half, it's probably easier to go by quarters, but let's just take it by half to make it a little simpler. We were down in China year over year. More of that compression came in Q1 and less so in Q2. With what Paul mentioned, with the expected BVP timing, which is roughly the same in our sort of calculus For ortho and for implants, we expect China to grow moderately in the second half with slightly better growth in the fourth quarter. And I think the main reason for that last piece is really twofold. So one would be we have had a well-prepared channel. So we've talked, I think, in the last many quarters about the fact that we've kept our channel as small and lean and tight as possible. That just means that it can respond a little bit more quickly post-VVP. And then the second piece I think is really important, and that's that as a strong global player and a number one brand in these markets, we do expect to get share from that. And likewise, if our supply chain is healthy, we expect that our volumes will rebound as well. So down slightly in the first half, growing in the second half, and then because we're likely facing slightly easier comps in the first half of next year, we would expect to see some growth as well in the business.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Elizabeth Anderson from Evercore. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks so much for the question. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the implant performance. Obviously, maybe in focusing outside of China since you just did such a good job on that, but You know, how are you seeing that? Is that mostly a macro phenomenon? And can you sort of remind us about sort of how you're thinking about like new product cadence and sort of the commercial execution and sort of how to think about this, you know, besides just sort of the tough comps in the back half of the year, but like more broadly into 27 and beyond? Thank you.

Sure, I'll take that, Elizabeth. Thanks for the question. I would say our implants performance in Q2 has been very similar to recent quarters. Balanced performance by geography and pretty balanced across the two main categories of challenger and premium. I'd also remind The audience that for us implants is much more than just the screw. We also have a very strong position in regenerative biomaterials, and we have a very good digital workflow business. Those latter two categories tend to be accretive to overall implants growth. You'll remember in 2024, we made an important sizable investment into restarting the new product engine in implants. We talked a lot about the gestation period for those programs, and they are now just starting to come to market. We had the S-Series launch in Q1. That's off to a very good start, running ahead of our launch plan. And about a quarter of the sales for that program are coming from competitive conversion. We feel good about that. We have another important launch in the abutments category. It's currently available in Europe, and we hope that will launch in the second half of 26 here in North America, provided regulatory approvals are gained. And then, of course, we talked about the Versa acquisition on the Q1 call. You can probably think about that as outsourced R&D. In that case, we bought a product that had already been developed and had gained registration in many markets, and our strategy is then to commercialize it globally through our very strong worldwide presence. That one is also off to a good start, running ahead of the acquisition plan. So, you know, I think for implants, very consistent performance, and we expect additional sort of returns on those investments that we've made.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Our next question is from Jeff Johnson from Barrett. Your line is open.

Thank you, Paul. Maybe if I could follow up on your implant comments there. Because you have been getting that strong biomaterials growth and in some of the other non-screw part of the business, I guess I'd call it, How do you think your performance is shaping up on the premium side and on the challenger side relative to market these last few quarters? And then you've done a couple acquisitions, small acquisitions versus being one, as you just mentioned, a couple other small ones. It seems like you're building some muscle there, really good balance sheet, good cash flow. here. Talk to me maybe about your M&A strategy going forward and what would be some boxes you would have to check on growth accretion, earnings dilution, risk, things like that.

Thanks. Let's see. A lot in the question. Let me start with kind of the balance of the implants performance. I'll start geographically. For us, our largest businesses are in the U.S. or North America and in Europe. I would say they're growing at market rates. We already touched on China and the impact that VBP had for us there. I would say we're stronger in China as a consequence of VBP than we were previous to that. We're working hard now to try to increase our developing markets Implant Business. So maybe that's a spin through the world from a geographic lens. In terms of the categories, for us, the two businesses grow about the same. Challenger outpaced premium last quarter, consistent with the market trend. The Challenger category outgrew premium. And we under-index, as you know, in Challenger. So we'd like to have a bigger Challenger business. and right now our primary focus is to do that organically. We have two good brands. We have Implant Direct and we have Alpha Biotech investing in both the same sorts of growth levers that we talk about for premium. So activity on both the commercial and the new product front. And then to the third part of your question, we do have good M&A capabilities at Invista and Implant is a category we look at We did three acquisitions over the past 18 months. All of them were in that implants platform. All of them were small, but I think they are representative of the types of deals we'd like to do. Strategically aligned and financially accretive deals where we are the logical owner, where we can cause the business to perform better than the previous owners. So that's what we're trying to do in implants.

Appreciate that. Maybe one quick follow-up for Eric, if I could, just to clarify. I think you talked, Eric, in your prepared remarks about EBITDA growing in line with core revenue growth in the back half of this year. Just remind me or give me high-level details, maybe, you know, one, did I hear that correctly, and two, why EBITDA won't grow faster than revenue in the back half. Thanks.

Yeah, for starters, Jeff, you got it correctly. I think the first sort of element to the equation here is what we expect for core growth in the second half. We talked, I think we've talked actually all year long about the fact that we would have slower core growth in the back half, primarily because of our billing day effect, which will be minus four days year on year in fourth quarter. And that just simply means that on an adjusted basis, we'll be growing significantly within the guidance range. So, you know, nothing significantly different with the business as a trend, but the billing day phenomenon is going to slow our revenues. And that's specific to fourth quarter. That also is part of the reason why we're going to have slower adjusted EBITDA growth. My prepared comments basically said we expect adjusted EBITDA growth to be roughly in line with what our revenue performance will be. So that makes it kind of low single digit growth year on year. Part of that is also just how we're thinking about investing in the business as we look specifically at the back half of the year and the success, I'd say, of the totality of the year. So we expect R&D to be up high single digits year over year in the second half, relatively consistent with how we've invested in the business year to date. And we expect sales and marketing to be up, call it mid single digits year over year. Again, reasonably consistent with What we've invested year to date, so first half, but just on a slightly lower revenue growth basis.

Our next question is from Alan Lutz from Bank of America.

Your line is open.

Good afternoon and thanks for taking the questions. One for either Paul or Eric. You talked about 3% volume growth and 2% pricing growth in the quarter. How should we think about how that evolves over the course of the rest of the year? And I guess as we think about exiting 2026, how do you think about the contributions from volume and price growth at that portfolio level heading into 2027? Thanks.

Yeah, I can start with that one, Alan. So I think first off, I would just say half to date, this year to date, we have had a very good mix through our lens of price performance and volume performance. I think the quarter was actually a very clean view of that. You mentioned that about two points from price, about three points from volume. And of course, that's certainly an equation that we would love to continue to take forward. I won't repeat what I just mentioned on the back half relative to billing days, but that particular effect will impact our volume in the second half, specifically the fourth quarter. But if we normalize that, we would expect it to be, you know, growing in line with our normalized volume year to date and consistent with our guidance range. And then there are two pieces I think that are relevant in the kind of price equation for us globally. We expect price growth in the second half to be consistent with how we grew price in the first half ex-China. That's all of our businesses around the world developed and developing markets. But we expect China to be down roughly an equal amount. And that's really just the VVP implementation that Paul talked about. Significant price down in ortho. We expect volumes to be up. And then Implant price down to be slightly. We expect volumes to be up there, but it will play out on the price line for roughly a neutral price for Invista in the second half. I think it is important to understand that outside of China, however, we've got price growth, which is coming on the back of price increases that we implemented last year and then targeted price increases by portfolio and geography this year.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question is from Lily Lozada from JP Morgan.

Your line is open.

Great. Thanks so much for taking the question. Hoping you can talk about your guidance ethos and how you're thinking about the rest of the year. You've done mid-single-digit underlying growth a few quarters in a row now, and guidance implies a slight step down over the back half of the year, even ex-selling days on a true organic basis. So is that just conservatism or are there other dynamics to be keeping in mind for the back half of 2026? And then I have a follow up.

Yeah, so I think maybe the big number as we look at it is four to 5% billing day impact in Q4. If we adjust for that, our guidance assumes we're growing roughly in line with how we grew year to date on a normalized basis. When we say normalized year to date, that includes really one significant factor that is the SPARC deferral benefit that we've had year to date and then of course we had the opposite beneficial impact on billing days so you know squiggly line approximately four percent year to date and that's reasonably in line with what we're expecting in the back half of the year so we we see our growth being actually pretty consistent half one to half two.

Got it that's helpful and then Just on EPS, you're raising guidance by almost double the beat. So what gives you confidence in that and what's better in the second half industry with forecasting? Thanks so much.

Yeah, I think there's really two, you know, pieces outside of growth, which I think we've just talked through. We will have obviously a very solid growth here. We continue to see very good profit leverage. That's thanks to our volume benefits. That's thanks to our price equation. and many more. which is really helping to absorb that interest rate deduction penalty that we've had in the past. So our rate guidance, if you didn't catch it is 26%. It's two points less than what we expected entering the year. It's reasonably consistent with where we are on a year to date basis. And I think really importantly, we see that as a good, sustainable, predictable rate going forward. We know that we've implemented a lot of strategies in addition to just better business performance that's making that tax rate sustainable.

Our next question is from Brandon Vasquez from William Collier. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I want to start with kind of wrapping up a couple of questions that have been asked already and just ask a little more clearly like, Are you able to quantify some of the moving pieces in the back half or at least like shore us up on what is an underlying growth rate in the second half of the year? Is it in the low single digit range? Because what we're trying to figure out is essentially what is the jumping rate or what's the exit rate on an underlying basis into 2027? So like what is the growth when you normalize for things like selling days, deferrals, VPP? There's just a bunch of moving pieces. So curious if you can talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, so I think at a high level, when you do the normalization, it would be about 3.5% core growth in the second half. That same math, spark deferral and billing days, was about 4% in the first half. So I think big picture, it's a very similar underlying growth rate, first half to second half. Just as a reminder, we will not have any more effect from our spark deferral benefit. I think we've telegraphed as we've gone throughout entering this year through the first couple quarters that we've basically lapped that final piece, which is about $5 million in the quarter itself. And then I think if you get really to the pieces of the business, there's not a lot of significant moving parts, Brandon, underneath that. We will have slightly better growth, as mentioned, I think, earlier in the call from China. That's a slight accretive benefit will have slightly less price benefit. We talked about that as we entered the year, just based on sort of the roll off of what we see from, you know, tariff related price actions last year into this year. But you put, I think, everything sort of in a basket and it'll be a very consistent underlying first half, second half performance as we see it. Three and a half percent call it core growth.

Great. That's super helpful. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Our next question is from Kevin Caliendo from UBS. Your line is open.

Thanks. Thanks for taking my question. Just getting back to China really quick, if I'm to understand that the meaningful price down in ortho, down 10, 15 in implants, you're still expecting growth. I'm guessing that's based on just a huge amount of pent-up demand ahead of or waiting for VBP. And if That's the case. How should we think about China into 27? How much of that carries forward? Will China be a growth tailwind in 27 or a headwind? I'm just trying to figure out the sizing of this sort of bolus that you're expecting to get in volumes in the second half and how that runs through going forward.

Kevin, I'll take that one. Thanks for the question. Maybe three components will help clarify it. So first, yes, we do expect an acceleration of growth. That comes from three things. The first is, as Eric mentioned, we've been keeping the channel tight. Product in channel, of course, gets revalued when the price changes. and so it's neither helpful to us nor our channel partners for that revaluation. So we keep that tight. It'll expand back to more normal levels post-VVP. So you get a short-term effect from that.

The second effect you get is related to market shares.

The way that VVP works is there's two bidding processes. One for the setting the procedure price and the second for the supplies price. The clinicians give a forecast, the hospitals give a forecast of the volume demand for each of the players. And so the larger market share players going in tend to get more coming out and you get growth from that. And then the third piece which was very evident with implants was the underlying patient demand. When you reduce the procedure price, Demand by patients went way up. Now specific to ortho BBP1, I think you'll see less of a patient impact to volume. And that's for two reasons. It's still unclear if procedure price will be changed on ortho. So we'll have to see whether that happens. And then the second is All things equal, it's easier to expand supply for implants than it is for ortho. Ortho is an 18-month to 24-month procedure, and it's more difficult to train a clinician to do orthodontics than it is to do implants, particularly in fixed wire orthodontics, which is still the largest category in China. So hopefully that unpacks for you a little bit where the growth will come in the second half. Moving forward, we're continuing to be long on China. It's currently the second biggest dental market in the world. We expect it to become the largest at some point. And so in the same way that we are continually making investments in other big companies, Dental markets, U.S., Germany, Japan are good examples. We're investing long term in China. A good example of that is the new Suzhou plant that we announced about this time last year. Invista has been doing this now for 130 something years. So we're pretty comfortable navigating short term uncertainty to support longer term growth. And China lines up well against that long term strategy. That's helpful, really helpful.

Can I ask a quick accounting follow-up? If I'm looking at this correctly, you had an $11 million revenue good guy from FX on the revenue side, but on the bridge for the EBITDA, it was a $12 million good guy. Is that just the delta there, hedges unwinding or something like that? I'm just trying to understand how that works.

Yeah, Kevin, if you go back If you go back to last year, so the answer to your question really lies in our prior year comp. Last year in the first half, we did not have an active hedging program for our balance sheet, and the dollar was weakening pretty substantially, if you might recall, from late 2024 through first half 2025. We had losses last year against that weakening U.S. dollar for balance sheet revaluations. Starting third quarter of last year, we started hedging our balance sheet. And so we're not seeing, you're not seeing any inter-quarter significant losses or gains because we're hedging appropriately. And so the better profit impact, which is I think the core of your question, is just coming from not having that prior year Q2 loss.

Makes total sense. I just wanted to make sure I understood. Thanks so much.

Yeah, you bet.

Our next question is from Jason Bednar from Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to come back quick first on the pricing discussion. Eric, could you maybe unpack the volume versus price contribution within consumables? I'm assuming there isn't a ton of pricing that you're capturing in that high single-digit growth in diagnostics, but correct me if I'm wrong. And then in SP&T, you referenced capturing price there. Can you talk about the regional or portfolio variations in price capture for implants?

Yeah, so let me just catch the first one. I think it was a comment really on E&C price capture. So We did get better price capture. Just call it above average, 100 basis points or so above the Invista average of almost 2% in E&C. We tend to get more in consumables. We see it as a less elastic market. And we also have extremely strong brands. But we did also get price capture in our diagnostics business. That also means that our volume growth, as Paul laid out the you know, 8% growth in E&C was very solid. So I think we're seeing, you know, good performance on multiple fronts there. Obviously, that means we got less price capture in SP&T. We're very select in terms of the portfolios that we're looking at there for price. And then it's, you know, sensitive as well to geographies. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of an idea Dip down, Jason.

Yeah, it does. No, it's helpful. I wanted to come back also then maybe to follow up on the BBP discussion. We have the analog here for ortho on how volumes may respond to price declines. We don't really have a good analog here for BBP2 in implants. Sorry if I missed it, but what are you assuming with respect to the volume growth response and VBP2, assuming we do have a 10% to 15% decline in price like you're expecting. What do you expect in volumes in response to that?

Yeah, Jason, let me take that one. So first, we're not sure we'll see the same volume effect from ortho VBP1 as we saw from implants VBP1. As we mentioned on a previous call, It's not as easy to expand supply on an orthodontic procedure as it is to implant. So we'll have to see how that plays out. We think the market share effect will be very similar, but the patient response time will need to tell. With respect to VBP2 on implant, we think that the volume growth there will come from additional market share gain. We think the patient demand response will be muted One, because the price isn't going to change much, and two, because there we're also not sure that the procedure price will change. We think we'll get more share as a result of VBP, because that's how that bidding process works, but the patient component of it for VBP2 will be less pronounced.

Okay, Paul, I mean, just real quick, net positive, net neutral on VBP2 for implants, or is it too early to say?

I think I'll hold on that one. I'm not sure. Eric, do you have a view on whether the 10% price increase will be net beneficial?

I mean, our view is that we're now getting down sort of to this rate and range where it's less impactful, right? It's less impactful from a price and an economics perspective. I think there's also an open question as to whether or not that will through procedure price, you know, drive demand. But we also look to a lot of previous MedTech BBPs. And I would say that, you know, the Chinese government has done a good job in getting it right, meaning, you know, getting this equation right of sort of the, you know, price down, volume up. And as a, you know, leader in terms of brand, you know, market global presence, you know, we think it's going to bode well for us in terms of volume. Obviously, there's variability around that. and it comes down a lot to how we've prepared with customers and how we're prepared with channel in our own supply chain and we feel strong about that.

Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.

Our next question is from Michael Cherney from Lyric Partners. Your line is open.

Thanks for squeezing me in. I think we've beaten a lot of these topics to death so I'll ask kind of a big picture one. What should we expect at the investor day and How are you thinking about positioning, obviously either there or at various different conferences, the product portfolio and the R&D engine?

Yeah, happy to take that one. You know, it's been about a year and a half since our last Investor Day, so it feels about like the right time to give you guys an update. In terms of the agenda, our current thinking is that I will kick things off with a deeper dive into the strategic and operational progress against the original plan, the value creation plan we unveiled in March of 2025. Eric will then do a similar kind of update, but through a more financial lens, quantifying those sort of strategic levers I'll talk about. Then we'll have each of the leaders of our four main businesses walk you guys through the main drivers that they're prioritizing. And then we expect to have an extended Q&A session. We're going to host this event and webcast it from our ProSara facility, which is just outside of New York City. It's about an hour outside. We make custom prosthetics there. The presentation and supporting materials will be, of course, available on our website. And for those who are able to attend in person, we'll provide a tour of that facility. It's pretty interesting. And then we'll also showcase some of our higher impact new products that have recently launched. So whether you're able to join us in person or online, we certainly hope you can make it on September 17th.

Our next question is from David Saxon from Needham.

Your line is open.

Oh, great. Thanks for taking the question. Good afternoon. Maybe I'll just skip it to one given the time and higher level too. So just when you're thinking about Invista's overall margin improvement potential, just curious where you see the most opportunity across SP&T and ENC. I think ENC is generally seeing a higher op margin, but I'm not sure how significant your significant spark could be longer term for SP&T. Thanks so much.

Yeah, let me answer the question along two vectors. First, by reporting segment, as you asked, and then secondly, you know, maybe a look across the P&L. Yes, you're correct that SPARC remains a very important margin expansion lever. We've had, I don't know how many consistent quarters of year-over-year unit cost reductions. We still see progress ahead of us. There's a multi-year unit cost improvement plan that the team's put together in a very organized, sequential way that they go about introducing that and then spreading it across the three factories we have. So plenty of work left to do there. We think a similar sort of opportunity is available to us in implants. The businesses are similar, implants and ortho, and seeing what is possible through our Spark experience has motivated us in other parts of the company. I would say, though, on the E&C side, there's still room to grow as well. In our diagnostics business, as you know, that's a comprehensive solution. That's a hardware business, but it also has software and services. and the software and services parts right now are growing even more quickly than the hardware part and they have better margins. So as those sides of that business grow, there's a natural margin expander that comes with it. If we look at it across the P&L, last year we had a particular focus on G&A. We took out $35 million. I think that not only helped and many more. and the last two quarters you've started to see that manifest itself in our gross margin line. We have gross margin expansion in both Q1 and Q2 and we're hopeful that there's more room to go there. That's kind of a thought on margins cut both by business and by lines of the P&L.

Great. Thanks so much for that.

Our next question is Michael Sircone from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question and squeezing me in. Just a quick one on the model. Eric, any update on what you're expecting for the FX impact for the back half of the year on sales?

Yeah, I think it's a pretty straightforward perspective. So we do not expect FX if you think about translation on revenues to be material at all in the next two quarters. In fact, our model's got it almost dead flat. So call it 0% growth year over year in Q3 and Q4. And if you just look at how rates have moved sequentially in the last several months, a little bit of a weakening euro, but a strengthening of a few of the other currencies. And effectively, if that environment doesn't change, we'll be in a Thank you.

Are there no more questions at this time? I would now like to turn the conference back to Mr. Paul Keel.

Okay, thanks, everyone. Let me just briefly underline a couple of thoughts by way of wrapping up the quarter. First, our second quarter results supported a strong first half performance for Invista. Compared to the first half of 2025, we delivered 7% core growth, 27% adjusted EBITDA growth, and over 50% EPS growth. Secondly, our Q2 performance was once again broad-based with both reporting segments and all major geographies posting strong results. Third, we continue to focus on executing our value creation plan with ongoing progress against all three of our priorities, growth, operations, and people. And fourth, this performance gives us confidence to increase our full year 2026 guidance. We look forward to the upcoming investor day that we referenced in a previous question. Again, that's on September 17th, where we'll take a longer look at our strategy and execution. I think that covers it for now. Have a great day, everyone, and a terrific week.

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