10/27/2026

speaker
Diego
Conference Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Diego and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Rogers Corporation Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I will now turn the call over to your host, Mr. Steve Haymore, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Haymore, you may begin.

speaker
Steve Haymore
Senior Director of Investor Relations

Good afternoon and welcome to the Rogers Corporation Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. The slides for today's call can be found in the investor section of our website along with the news release that was issued earlier today. Please turn to slide two. Before we begin, I would like to note that statements in this conference call that are not strictly historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and should be considered subject to many uncertainties that exist in Rogers operations and environment. These uncertainties include economic conditions, market demand, and competitive factors. Such factors could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statement made today. Please turn to slide three. The discussion during this conference call will also reference certain financial measures that were not prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of those non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the slide deck for today's call. With me today are Ali El-Haj, President and CEO, and Laura Russell, Senior Vice President and CFO. I will now turn the call over to Ali.

speaker
Ali El-Haj
President and CEO

Thanks, Steve, and thank you everyone for joining us today. I will begin on slide four. We delivered another quarter of meaningful year-over-year improvement in our financial performance with higher sales across all end markets and stronger profitability and cash flow generation. Sales were $236 million, up 9% from the prior year. Adjusted EPS increased 54% to $1.39, the highest score on the earnings since 2022. adjusted EBITDA increased by 28% to $48 million or greater than 20% of sales. This result is the highest EBITDA margin achieved in the last five years. Over the past several quarters, we have intensified our focus on deepening customer relationships, improving the speed of execution, and implementing a more efficient operating structure. These results highlight the progress we are making. We also continue to advance our growth strategy. In our core markets, we secured new design wins during the quarter, and the growth outlook remains positive. Across our high growth opportunities, we made progress in several key areas. Customer engagement and technical validation activities for our data center solutions continued, while our thermal runaway protection and EMI shielding programs achieved important internal milestones. Looking to the fourth quarter, we expect continued meaningful year-over-year improvement. This includes approximately 9% revenue growth, 12% adjusted EPS growth, and a 16% increase in adjusted EBITDA. Then is slide five. At 34% of third quarter sales, industrial is our largest end market. Revenue improved slightly compared to a prior year with higher sales into renewable energy and other applications. Sales increased modestly in all regions. Automotive represented 24% of Q3 sales and increased at a high single digit rate year over year. Growth was driven by improved demand for ADAS applications and stronger sales into both ICE and electric vehicle platforms. Electronics and communications accounted for 20% of sales in the quarter and continued to deliver strong growth. Performance was driven by higher sales of laminate circuit materials for wireless infrastructure, which offset lower smartphone sales. Aerospace and defense represented 15% of the Q3 sales and grew at mid single digit rate. The increase reflected higher sales into both defense and commercial aerospace applications. Overall, the breadth of the quarter's performance is encouraging. Sales increased across all end markets, reflecting a combination of improved demand, new program activities, and continued execution against our commercial priorities. Turning to slide six. We remain focused on accelerating growth by strengthening our position in core markets and applying our proven capabilities to high growth adjacent opportunities. Within our core markets, we secured a number of new design awards in Q3. I will highlight a few. In aerospace and defense, our laminate material was designed into a drone detection system. Rogers Brand, proven reliability and localized support were deciding factors in the award decision. In automotive, our elastomeric materials were designed into a battery pack application with a leading ED manufacturer. In addition, our ceramic AMB substrates were selected to be used in multiple electric vehicle models with a global auto OEM. The combination of our technology and technical service capabilities were key factors in our decisions. In data centers, a major end user selected our silicon materials to safeguard sensitive components within the server tray. The materials combined high compressibility with superior noise and vibration isolation to help enable reliable performance. Also in both AAS and EMS, we secured meaningful design wins for energy storage system applications. These wins reinforce the value of our differentiated solutions and deep customer relationships. They also support our objective of achieving sustainable growth across the core portfolio. This growth will naturally lead to expected improvement in factory utilization levels, including for our ceramic business. In high growth adjacencies, the development and customer testing of our signal integrity and chip cooling solutions for data center application is continuing. We continue to see strong pace and focus from customers sampling our laminate circuit materials for high speed digital applications. Customer feedback remained positive on the performance of our materials to address rapidly emerging signal integrity challenges. Our microchannel cooler solutions provide an improved cooling technology to address rising AI chip power density. Working with our lead customers, we have developed and tested multiple generations of prototypes with the results continuing to validate the differentiated performance of our solutions. These programs leverage capabilities where Rogers has established technical expertise and are designed to address increasingly demand requirements in AI data centers. We completed benchmarking testing for our thermal runaway protection solution and our beginning customer sampling. This milestone moves us closer to commercializing a differentiated battery safety solution that combines our material expertise with deep application knowledge. We are also advancing our EMI shielding technology. We have identified priority customers and applications and are developing solutions tailored to their requirements with initial customer sampling targeted for early 2027. Across these opportunities, our approach remains disciplined. We are prioritizing applications where our capabilities provide a clear customer benefit, and we are working closely with customers to advance qualification and commercialization. I will now turn it to Laura to discuss our third quarter's financial performance and current quarter outlook.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-