Trane Technologies plc

Good morning and welcome to the Trane Technologies fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. My name is Regina and I will be your operator for the call. The call will begin in a few moments with the speaker remarks and the Q&A session. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We ask that you please limit your questions to one and one follow-up. I will now turn the call over to Zach Nagel, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Training Technologies' fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. This call is being webcast on our website at trainingtechnologies.com, where you'll find the accompanying presentations. We're also recording and archiving this call on our website. Please go to slide two. Statements made in today's call that are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of federal securities law. Please see our SEC filings for a description of some of the factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. This presentation also includes non-GAAP measures which are explained in the financial tables attached to our news release. Joining me on today's call are Dave Rigneri, chair and CEO, and Chris Kuhn, executive vice president and CFO. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dave. Dave?

Thanks, Zach, and everyone for joining today's call. Please turn to slide number three. I'd like to begin with a few thoughts on our purpose-driven strategy, which continues to drive consistent outperformance over time. Demand for energy has never been greater. Digitalization, industrial growth, and new technologies are putting pressure on energy systems. Customers are looking for smarter, more efficient ways to run their operations. That's where Trane Technologies is uniquely positioned to win. Our solutions help customers save energy, lower operating costs, and create more balance and flexibility in how they use energy. It's proof that sustainability and performance go hand in hand. As we look ahead, our innovation and expertise continue to set us apart. With our exceptional backlog, robust demand, proven business operating system, and leading innovation, we're well positioned to continue delivering differentiated value well into the future. Please turn to slide number four. 2025 was a strong year for the company. Our global teams executed at a high level, enabling us to exceed adjusted EPS guidance despite softness in residential and transport refrigeration markets. Free cash flow remained robust, funding strategic M&A, a growing dividend, and significant share repurchases. Bookings were also exceptional. Our commercial HVAC businesses in Americas and EMEA added $1.3 billion in backlog versus year-end 2024. strengthening our visibility into strong growth in 2026 and beyond. Please turn to slide number five. Relentless investment in innovation, growth, people, culture, and our business operating system has delivered clear, sustained benefits reflected in our strong and consistent track record. Since 2020, we've achieved an 11% revenue compound annual growth rate, a 24% adjusted EPS compound annual growth rate, expanded adjusted EBITDA margins by 470 basis points, and delivered free cash flow conversion of 106%, while deploying over $15 billion through our balanced capital allocation strategy. Consistent reinvestment has been central to our long-term success. For more than a decade, we've steadily invested in high ROI initiatives, built a world-class direct sales and service organization, and developed cutting-edge solutions for our customers' most pressing challenges, driving sustained demand. We have a proven track record and all the essential ingredients to execute our strategy and continue delivering differentiated returns over the long term. Please turn to slide number six. We delivered strong fourth quarter performance, highlighted by exceptional enterprise organic bookings of 22%, driving record backlog of $7.8 billion. Organic revenue grew 4%, led by continued strength in our America's commercial HVAC businesses and our global services business. We also delivered 10% adjusted EPS growth and robust free cash flow. Exceptional bookings were led by our commercial HVAC businesses. America's commercial HVAC was again a standout, delivering record Q4 organic bookings, up more than 35% year over year. Applied solutions bookings were up more than 120%, with a record book-to-bill of 200%, marking the second consecutive quarter with applied bookings growth exceeding 100%. EMEA HVAC also delivered strong results, with its second straight quarter of mid to high teens organic bookings growth. Commercial HVAC backlog is substantially higher versus year end 2024, with backlog up approximately 25% in the Americas and nearly 40% in EMEA. And importantly, the backlog is predominantly applied, which carries a long higher margin services tail. As we enter 2026, we are well positioned for growth, especially in areas where disciplined execution to our business operating system is a key driver of success. In commercial HVAC, exceptional bookings growth and record backlog give us strong visibility to future revenues and market outgrowth. Projective pipelines remain robust and continue to build. even after two consecutive quarters of more than 100 applied growth in america's commercial hbac we continue to see substantial opportunities ahead our services business about one-third of enterprise revenue remains a durable and consistent growth engine with a low teens compound annual growth rate since becoming trained technologies in 2020 we continue to invest heavily in services and expand our digital capabilities to deliver advanced solutions with compelling value and attractive paybacks. We are confident services will remain a strong growth driver in 2026 and beyond. Two additional factors have the potential to accelerate growth in the back half of the year. Residential markets were a tale of two halves in 2025, with a significantly weaker second half. We expect 2026 to get progressively better. with tailwinds building later in the year as comps ease. Similarly, industrial forecasts, including from ACT, point to a transport market recovery beginning late in 2026 and extending into 2027 and beyond, a view we largely share. This should support growth in the fourth quarter and beyond. Our guidance reflects this backdrop, and Chris will elaborate shortly. Please turn to slide number seven. America's commercial HVAC continued its standout performance, with bookings up more than 35% and revenue up low double digits. Growth was broad-based across nearly all verticals and in both equipment and services. In residential, bookings were up mid-single digits, while revenues declined mid-teens, reflecting the normalization of channel inventory in the quarter. In America's transport refrigeration, bookings were down mid-single digits and revenues were down low single digits, outperforming transport markets that declined more than 20%. In EMEA, commercial HVAC bookings were again robust, up mid-teens, and revenues were up mid-single digits. EMEA transport bookings were down low single digits and revenues declined at a similar rate, outperforming in markets that were down mid-single digits. In Asia Pacific, China remained challenging with double digit declines in bookings and revenue. The rest of Asia performed as expected with bookings up low double digits and revenues down low single digits. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Chris. Chris?

Thanks, Dave. Please turn to slide number eight. Dave covered many of the key points from this slide earlier, so I'll keep my comments brief. Q4 organic revenue grew 4%, and 7% excluding residential, consistent with the dynamics we've already discussed. Margins were impacted by proactive measures taken to normalize residential inventory, which reduced factory production days by one-third and resulted in roughly 60% deleverage in that business. Please turn to slide number nine. In the Americas, we delivered 5% organic revenue growth driven by strong commercial HVAC volume and positive price, partially offset by residential declines. Margins were lower mainly due to residential deleverage. We also stepped up innovation and growth investments. In EMEA, organic revenue grew 2% led by commercial HVAC. Adjusted EBITDA margin declined 160 basis points, reflecting year one acquisition and integration costs. As noted throughout the year, channel investments and M&A in 2025 weighed on near-term margins but position us for stronger long-term growth. In Asia Pacific, organic revenue declined 6% and adjusted EBITDA margin declined 20 basis points. The team managed costs to limit the leverage while continuing to invest in the business. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Dave. Dave?

Thanks, Chris. Please turn to slide number 10. Overall, Q4 played out largely as expected, with residential revenues a bit better than anticipated, and commercial HVAC bookings even stronger. Our Americas commercial HVAC business continue to execute at a very high level, significantly outperforming in markets. Bookings and revenues are compounding at strong rates, especially in applied solutions. As noted earlier, our exceptional bookings, record backlog, and rapidly expanding pipeline give us a high level of confidence that 2026 will be another strong year. Based on customer delivery timing and year-over-year comparisons, we expect solid growth in the first half and even stronger growth in the back half. In residential, we believe channel inventory is largely normalized as we enter Q1. Our outlook for the market for 2026 is prudent, flat to modestly lower, with Q1 expected to be the trough. down about 20% given the high teens growth we saw in Q1 2025. We expect the market to return to growth in the second half. In the Americas transport markets, ACTS forecast trailers down about 7% in 2026, and our view is generally aligned. Market indicators are improving, and we expect the sector to turn positive late in 2026 and into 2027. We expect to again outperform the market. In EMEA, commercial HVAC enters 2026 following a significant investment year and strong 2025 bookings that lifted backlog nearly 40% year over year. We expect a softer start with mid-single-digit growth improving to high single-digit growth in the second half as backlog converts. EMEA transport markets are expected to be flat to modestly lower. The team grew low single digits in a down market in 2025 and we expect them to outperform again in 2026. In Asia Pacific, we expect mixed performance with the rest of Asia outperforming China. For the region as a whole, we expect relatively flat performance in 2026. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Chris. Chris? Thanks, Dave.

Please turn to slide number 11. Our 2026 guidance reflects the market dynamics we've discussed and operational excellence driven by our business operating system. It also incorporates our value creation flywheel, continued investment in innovation, market outgrowth, healthy leverage, and strong free cash flow. We are initiating 2026 guidance with 6 to 7% organic revenue growth and adjusted EPS of $14.65 to $14.85 of 12 to 14%. We expect about 50 basis points of growth from FX and roughly 200 basis points from M&A, either closed or committed for early 2026. All in, reported revenue growth is expected to be 8.5% to 9.5%. We are targeting organic leverage at 25% or higher, consistent with our long-term framework, and free cash flow conversion of 100% or greater. For the first quarter, we expect flattest organic revenue growth. reflecting continued strength in commercial HVAC offset by tough comps and residential, given the high teens growth we saw in Q1 2025 and market-driven declines in transport. We expect Q1 adjusted EPS of approximately $2.50. Importantly, over the past four years, Q1 has averaged slightly below 17% of full-year EPS, which aligns with our 2026 guidance. Given the dynamics we've outlined, we believe this is a strong and achievable start to the year. For additional details, please refer to slide 18. Please turn to slide number 12. We remain committed to our balanced capital allocation strategy, focused on deploying excess cash to maximize shareholder returns. First, we strengthen our core business through relentless reinvestment. Second, we maintain a strong balance sheet to ensure optionality as markets evolve. Third, we expect to deploy 100% of excess cash over time. Our approach includes strategic M&A to enhance long-term returns and share repurchases when the stock trades below our calculated intrinsic value. Please turn to slide 13. In 2025, we deployed or committed approximately $3.2 billion through our balanced capital allocation strategy, including about $840 million to dividends, $720 million to M&A, and roughly $1.5 billion to share repurchases. We advanced several strategic acquisitions during the year, and our pipeline remains active heading into 2026. The largest acquisition announced in December is Stellar Energy, a leading provider of turnkey data center cooling solutions. Stellar brings strong capability in modular design and build, positioning us to meet growing demand for prefabricated cooling systems that ease supply chain and labor constraints and enable rapid, scalable deployment. Their expertise also enhances our ability to apply modular solutions across additional verticals. We expect the acquisition to close in the first quarter, and we look forward to welcoming the team to train technologies. The deal economics are compelling, and we expect modest EPS accretion in 2026, even after year one acquisition and integration costs. For 2026, we expect to deploy between $2.8 billion and $3.3 billion. With strong free cash flow, ample liquidity, a healthy balance sheet, and $4.7 billion remaining under our share repurchase authorization, we have excellent capital allocation optionality moving forward. I'd like to turn the call back over to Dave. Dave?

Thanks, Chris. Please turn to slide number 15. The Americas transport refrigeration market remains dynamic. but the long-term outlook is strong. ACT forecast the trailer market down about 7% in 2026, bottoming in the first half and improving in the back half. ACT also expects a sharp rebound beginning in 2027, including roughly 50% growth and continued expansion to the end of the decade. We expect growth as well, but anticipate a more measured gradual slope to the recovery. We're managing the down cycle effectively, outperforming in markets, and continuing to invest in innovation. So we're well positioned as the market strengthens. Please turn to slide number 16. In closing, I'm incredibly proud of our global team. Their talent has powered our consistent outperformance and leading financial results over the past five years. And we see tremendous opportunities ahead. With our exceptional backlog, strong demand, proven business operating system, and leading innovation, we're confident in our ability to deliver differentiated long-term value and advance a more sustainable world. And now we'd be happy to take your questions. Operator?

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We ask that you please limit your questions to one and one follow-up. Our first question will come from the line of Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Maybe just wanted to start with America's commercial HVAC just to understand the guidance on revenue for the year ahead. Because I guess if I look at the orders or bookings there last year, they were up maybe 10% in the first half, you know, up in the 30s in the back half. So with lead times and so forth, should we expect a decent acceleration in America's commercial HVAC revenue growth in the back half of the year ahead?

Hey, Julian, it's Chris. I'll start, and then Dave will jump in. That's right. I mean, think about the very strong bookings growth in the second half of 2025 in commercial HVAC. The first half was strong up mid-teens, but we saw up about 30%, over 30% in the second half of 2025. Now, when you think about applied systems, not uncommon to think about a nine-month cycle from order date to ship date. So how we see 2026 playing out for commercial HVAC Americas is the first quarter, strong growth, probably in that 7% to 8% range. Second quarter grows to about 10% growth, and then it is up about low teens in the second half of the year. And we've dialed that in with the backlog and the timing of which when customers want us to deliver the products.

Yeah. Hey, Jillian. How you doing, Dave? I think as Chris described in the Americas, it's a very similar story that we see in Europe. Okay. So in Europe, think of the first half of the year, orders were up high single digits. The back half of the year, they were up high teens. So the same is exactly happening as to how our backlog, which is at record levels, is layered in. The good news also is that the pipelines in both businesses are extremely strong right I said that at the end of the third quarter that I've never seen them this high before. And I would tell you, they remain very, very robust as we enter Q1 in 2026.

That's helpful, thank you. And then just my second question on US Resi HVAC, maybe help us understand the confidence in that leaning out of inventory having largely already happened and any update you could give on, pricing in that market. We keep being fed anecdotes from people every day about discounting. We didn't seem to hear that from an OEM peer yesterday. Just wondered your perspectives on that, please.

Yeah, I'll let Chris talk to the pricing side of it. But on the inventory side, look, we were very, very intentional in the fourth quarter to get the inventory right. And you heard in our prepared remarks, we took a third of the production days out So we knew that was going to cost us on the bottom line as we deleveraged over 60% in that particular business. But we also believe that we have inventory size right as we enter 2026. So 2025 is behind us. We're looking forward and see how the year plays out. And remember, for the full year, we believe that, you know, Resi will be, you know, flat to down up to 5%. We'll see how the year plays out. But we believe that inventory is in the position we want it to be, and we were very, very intentional in getting there. Do you want to talk about pricing?

Julian, we've not seen pricing fade in the business. If I think about the fourth quarter and pricing, it really is more due to volume being lower than anything else. So certainly great products, good industry, and wouldn't add anything more than that.

Yeah, the only other thing I would add, Julian, is remember Q1's got some really tough So even though inventory is in a, you know, a right-sized position, we still are going to have some very difficult comps with last year being up in the high teens.

Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Jillian. Talk to you soon.

Our next question will come from the line of Scott Davis with Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Hey, Scott. How are you?

I'm great. It's been a good quarter so far for or today, I guess I should say it's been pretty good. And you guys put up these orders and applied are a nice surprise. And my question just is really about whether orders are broadening out amongst your end markets, you know, like office education, et cetera, or are they narrowing and more of that more of that incremental order strength is in fact data center.

Yeah, I mean, look, data centers are very strong. Okay. But I would also tell you that if you look across the 14 verticals that we track, at least in the Americas, we had broad-based growth, which was very, very encouraging. I think we had 12 or 14 verticals up. So that's encouraging for us. And so, yeah, but don't misinterpret my comments. Data centers were very strong, and they'll continue to be strong well into the future. but uh it is broad-based growth across the majority of our verticals that we track in commercial hvac and comparably broad you would say dave versus maybe a year ago um i'd have to i mean i you know it's hard to say i think we we saw growth in some verticals that maybe a year ago i was saying we're weak like retail we saw growth in retail office is coming back for us so uh look i'm bullish on and for The order rate is one thing, but if I look at where the pipeline is, it's also very broad-based, which is very encouraging for the future.

Makes sense. Okay. I'll keep it at that. Thank you, guys. Best of luck this year. Talk to you soon. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Snyder with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I also wanted to ask about the applied orders, second straight quarter up over 100%. As we've seen this ramp in orders into the back half of the year, has there been an impact at all from changes in customer lead times? Are we starting to see customers order maybe with longer lead times again? There's some concerns out there in certain spots around supply chain pinch points. Just wondering if that's having any impact on these You know, just the massive orders we're seeing.

Yeah. Hey, Chris, how you doing? This is Dave. But I would say we haven't seen that. I mean, you know, you have some verticals that will give you more of a longer view versus others. But for the most part, I haven't seen any change occurring there probably since really probably at least the last, I'll say, at least 12 months. There hasn't been a dramatic change there in lead times. We're very competitive on our lead times. I told you that in the third quarter. We actually introduced a couple of quick ship programs so that sometimes you could have an emergency or you could have a contractor that forgot to order a piece of equipment. We're able to provide that now with some of our quick ship programs.

Appreciate that color. Thank you. Maybe if I could follow up on data center, but specifically on the service side. You know, as the architecture there continues to change, you know, obviously very rapidly, you know, are the attachment rates in that business better than they were, say, five or seven years ago, as there may be more so relying on you guys to do a lot of that service, just, you know, given how fast things are changing relative to a decade ago? Thank you so much.

Yeah, I think, I think for sure. Okay. Obviously hyperscalers or colos, they want the OEM to be doing the service work. Okay. I think what's changing is the size of these data center fields or farms as they're referred to are quite large. So, um, we're seeing more dedicated resources to a particular data center. Um, but, um, I would say for sure, if you go back, uh, like say a decade ago, I don't think our attachment rate was nearly what it is today, but I'd be hard pressed to think where we've done a major chiller farm where we haven't had the service agreements.

Thank you.

I appreciate that. All right. Thanks, Chris.

Our next question will come from the line of Andy Kaplowitz with City Group. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone.

Andy, how are you?

Good. Are you? David, you had some margin pressure in Q4 in Americas and Europe. You explained it well. A lot of it was residue leveraging in Americas and European investment. But maybe you could talk about how to think about segment incrementals in the context of your normal expected 25% plus. Does European margins start to turn down more positive in 26, given its backlog? And how would you think about your overall price-cost dynamics, given recently higher commodity costs?

Andy, on the 25% or better incrementals for 2026, you know as well that's certainly where we like to start the year, and it gives us a lot of flexibility to make investments. We view each one of our segments, so the Americas, EMEA, and Asia, all to be delivering 25% or better organic incrementals in 2026. Reported incrementals, they'll have about a 700 basis points lower impact James Rattling Leafs, than organic and that's really just the result of m&a coming into coming into the year at a starting point of lower margins. James Rattling Leafs, which gives us a great opportunity to grow those margins over time so 25% plus across each of the segments for the year. James Rattling Leafs, I think about price cost in the guide of the six to 7% organic think of pricing is around a point and a half for the year we've had a very proven and strong track record of staying ahead of inflation. It's our current view around inflation and tariffs today. And at the same time, we have to remain very nimble and dynamic given input costs. So confident that that one and a half points of price would be in a position to drive the 20 to 30 basis points of margin growth as we'd go into any year thinking about price versus inflation, but will remain dynamic.

From Kristin and Dave, maybe you could talk a little more about your positioning in the data center market. I think the stellar acquisition is going to help you a lot. But how is Trane adapting in thermal management as it adapts to maybe a little more liquid cooling? And then obviously there were some comments a few weeks ago from one of your data center partners. So you could opine on their comments, water chillers versus air chillers and so on.

Yeah, well, hey, thanks for the question, Andy. Look, at the end of the day, we've been very strong in the data center vertical for decades, and we're going to be very strong in the future. And the short answer to your question is, is we see chillers in the data center vertical, you know, well into the future. But let me take a step back. Look, we're working very closely with many influencers in the data center vertical. So think of hyperscalers, think of chip manufacturers like NVIDIA and others, okay? And we're helping them design data centers of the future, or you may have heard them referred to as reference designed data centers. And think of these data centers as the data centers that will be built, you know, maybe two to four years out. And when we're sitting with these customers, we're bringing our expertise around the thermal management system to the discussion. And I have not seen a reference design or data center of the future that does not include chillers, just to be very clear. Now, I think that when we talk about some of these future designs, you're going to see a lot of innovation around the thermal management system, specifically around the chiller, that is really exciting. I won't talk about in too much detail here for obvious reasons. This is, I mean, this is fun. I mean, when you sit down in these rooms and our engineers are very detailed on this, but it's just, you get really creative ideas. We have a lot of these new innovations in the pipeline. Some of them are actually still being in the modeling stage because they're so futuristic and thought process. But I want everyone to realize that, you know, train technologies is at the forefront of this innovation. and we're helping our customers think through what's possible. And I'll conclude with we've been very strong in the data center vertical for decades, and we're going to continue to be very, very strong well into the future.

Helpful color, Dave. Thank you. All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Amit Narotra with UBS. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Hey, Dave. I just wanted to follow up on that point because I don't think people are debating whether a chiller will be in a data center in the future. I think the question really is about how much you need to run it and do run times get affected and do you need as many of them? And so I'd appreciate it if you can just address that point, particularly also how train is positioned in an environment where chillers run less or are needed less. Because on one side, you're working with NVIDIA to create this reference design. On the other side, you know, one of the main value products you sell in that market, you could just need less of them or run less. I mean, I don't know if you disagree with that, but I'd love your perspective on it.

Well, I do. I think, first of all, I mean, think about a data center farm in the future. Think about free cooling being built in to the data center, okay? So you'll have a, let's make up a number here, 100 chillers will have free cooling capability. To run free cooling, you'll obviously be running the fans. We could debate how often you're going to run the compressor side of the thermal management system there, but you will definitely be running the fans through the free cooling cycle. How you manage that is going to be very important in the future. And I'm trying to be sensitive here to some of the innovation that you're going to see coming in the future. But chillers are mechanical systems. James Pfeiffer- or no not a lot different than maybe your car, so you don't leave your car in the garage for six months and don't run it. James Pfeiffer- Because if you did, you may not, you may not be very happy when you go out to try to start it up, so these these systems do need to run at some point and so we're working through that equation. Um, the other, the other side of it is, is do you need more or less? I think at the end of the day, you have a thermal load that you have to be able to size for the size of the data center. So the answer is you're still gonna, you're still gonna have the same number. Um, the frequency of which the compressor side runs will be, it will vary, but which, which could impact the services side as to how often you service these pieces of equipment. Um, and to be fair, we're still modeling that based on different, um, innovations that are, that are coming in the future.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then just, um, maybe more tactically, Chris, um, you know, the organic growth target six and a half percent, obviously it's an acceleration in 25, but not as much of an acceleration is that maybe I would have. Expected given, um, resi is kind of flattish to down, you know, you've got probably applied equipment and services. maintaining, if not accelerating growth, just given the strength of the orders. Is that a fair assumption? I know you guys like to be conservative out of the gate and give yourself cushion, especially given the uncertainty of last year and what happened. But maybe you'd push back to me saying it's not actually that conservative based on some puts and takes that you think of.

Yeah, I mean, we like to set guidance where we can meet it or exceed it. And so that's where we're starting here in January with a lot of flexibility to react to conditions that may present themselves we don't know today. You know, the guidance range on the six to seven on the full year organic, it's got America's commercial HVAC up about 10%. And again, we think that's very strong growth for that business. And Maybe a de-risked outlook when you think about residential. We described it as flat to down 5%. Transport markets and residential markets trough in the first half and then much easier comps in the second half of the year. But transport we're expecting to be flat to down low single digits with markets down in the high single digits will outperform. So I think it's a reasonable start to the year. We have a lot of confidence in delivering on the results like we would any time here in January. Um, and when you think about transport and residential, they're making up around 25, 30% of the portfolio that we're not baking in much growth for on the full year basis. So we expect that they'll improve in the second half on easier comps. Um, we've got great teams and innovations. We keep leaning into both of those portfolios and, um, we'll see how the year kind of plays out, but we have a lot of confidence in the guy that we just put out today.

Yeah. I thought I'd ask that question, but thank you, Chris, for entertaining it. I appreciate it. Take care, guys. Okay. Thanks, Yvette.

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Obin with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, yes. Good morning. Hey, Andrew. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. Just a question on residential in the first quarter. I think the scope of sort of underabsorption in the fourth quarter was a little bit surprising to us. At the same time, you commented that residential market was better in the fourth quarter. How should we think about under-absorption relative to normal operating leverage in America's in Q1 of 26?

I'll let Chris talk about the under-absorption. Let me just clarify a few things. I'm not sure the market was a lot stronger in the fourth quarter. I think we were stronger in the fourth quarter on resi. And I would also tell you, Andrew, that we were very, very intentional in taking these days out. So it wasn't necessarily a surprise to us to deleverage. We kind of had that baked into our models. But we wanted to get this behind us, and we believe it's behind us now. So, Chris, do you want to talk about Q1 leverage?

Sure. We've got residential in our guide in the first quarter down about 20%. A reminder, the business was up in the high teens in the first quarter of last year, and that drove strong volume growth. For Q1, look, we're still very much in a shoulder season for residential. We'd expect the deleverage in the first quarter to be better than the deleverage we saw in the fourth quarter. To Dave's point, we intentionally took production days out, and that had the strongest impact on a roughly 60% deleverage in the fourth quarter. Think about the first quarter, residential deleveraging within gross margins. We've got level loaded production assumptions through the first quarter. We've got inventory, we believe, at the right level in the channel. And then let's see how the year kind of plays out. But I think we really tried to, as one person noted, take the medicine in the fourth quarter as best we could and then set ourselves up well for 2026.

Thanks so much. And just I know there is a lot of focus on data centers that are vertical, but At the same time, there are a lot of announcements about biopharma reshoring and clearly one of your key verticals. Can you tell us what it is you are seeing in terms of biopharma reshoring, how real it is, how excited should we get about it into 26, and how much visibility do you have from your customers into 26 and 27? Thank you.

It's a great question, Andrew. i said earlier that you know we had 12 or 14 verticals that were positive one of the verticals that was not positive was life science okay so uh but if i look at the pipeline of activity yeah we see some of those large pharma projects that are uh you know set for reshoring i said in the pipeline um we're optimistic but we'll see how they play out but we are we are all over tracking um some of those large projects that are in these, you know, this classification of mega projects. But we're hopeful that some of those actually come to reality here in the near term.

Andrew, I'll add on the $7.8 billion of backlog that we finished 2025 with, there's a bit over a billion dollars of backlog that's for 2027 and beyond. That's up more than 30% versus a year ago, and it reflects multiple verticals. Let me be clear. But, you know, again, entering 2026 with a stronger backlog than 25 and certainly building backlog already for 27 and beyond. Thanks so much.

All right.

Thanks, Andrew.

Our next question comes from the line of Tommy Moore with Stevens. Please go ahead.

Morning, and thank you for taking my questions.

Hey, Tommy, how are you? Good morning.

Doing fine, thanks. Dave, I want to start by going back to the commentary from NVIDIA that you've elaborated on a bit today. If you think about the HVAC content in a data center, so whatever fraction of every dollar spent on a data center today that you would attribute to HVAC. And then you think about the two to four year roadmap where you're in discussions already. When we're two to four years out, do you think that fraction is higher, lower, about the same as today?

Yeah, I'm going to err on the side of saying it's probably about the same, okay? You've got to look at the whole thermal management system, and that's one of the advantages that we bring to these conversations as we do look at the whole thermal management system. I think the amount of power that is being consumed by the thermal management system may be less. James Rattling Leafs. Okay, so think of it as a trade off between you will still need the thermal management system, the how often it runs or the power that it consumes may be less. James Rattling Leafs. Therefore you'll have the opportunity to do more computing within the data Center right if that makes sense, so that those are the those are the conversations that are happening, where. how do we redirect some of the power over to the computing side versus running the thermal management system?

Thank you. That's very helpful, Dave. I also wanted to ask a follow-up on resi pricing. Chris, I think earlier you said you have not seen it fade. I'm curious as you dialed in your outlook for sales this year flat to down five, does that assume some incremental price realization in 26 and And if the answer there is yes, do you feel like your pricing plus minus in line with other major players in the market there? Thank you.

Tommy, I don't want to get in front of our residential team in terms of their plans for pricing. So I won't comment specifically there, but the flat to down five residential for the full year on a dollar basis. It assumes some level of price, whether it be new price increases or any carryovers from last year. And then we'll see how the year plays out. It's rough estimates at this point in time. It's probably a modestly lower year to flat on pricing. We'll see how that plays out.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And I'll turn it back. Thanks, Tommy.

Our next question will come from the line of Noah Kay with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking the questions. I'd like to pick up on the broad commercial HVAC strength. You know, in the past, I think the split of orders backlog has maybe skewed a little bit more towards retrofit. We're seeing some new construction indicators picking up. So how should we think about new build versus retrofit split as relative drivers of the 26 outlook? And to what extent, if any, the back half acceleration ties into new construction?

Yeah, I mean, I think you need to look at it by vertical, Noah. So certainly in the data center vertical, there's a lot of new construction, almost all. But then when you get back into some of the other core verticals, it's very similar to what we've seen in the past. And it makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, I always tell people, look out your window and how many buildings do you see versus how many cranes do you see? And you'll realize that the majority of our, our business is focused on the, you know, how do you retrofit versus new construction, but it really, you gotta really, your question's a great one. Just look at it by different verticals and you may get a different answer.

Okay. Yeah. Very fair. Thanks, Dave. Um, I want to ask you about stellar energy, you know, I guess just how much overlap is there in the customer base today? And maybe can you talk a little bit about kind of key points of differentiation around what this adds to your capabilities?

Yeah. I mean, look, I think, well, sir, sure. There's some overlap, but at the end of the day, think of stellar energy as being able to build modular chiller plants. And, um, you know, I mean, so just the, and then these modular chiller plants get assembled on a, on a job site like Legos. And so you're reducing the amount of skilled labor required on the job site. You're moving that back to the factory. You're testing these systems in a different way in a factory versus what you would do at a job site. So again, that's a benefit as well. Look, they're predominantly right now in the data center vertical, but we see a lot of opportunities for this modular concept in core verticals as well. I think we're all aware of the skilled labor shortages and potential and the potential that that has to slow projects up where modular designs are going to become they're very you know very attractive today but i think they're going to become even more attractive in other verticals than just the data center vertical yeah and that that cross sells an opportunity for you um great thank you very much all right thanks though hey regina before you go to the next speaker let me just uh clarify a point i made i i don't want to confuse anybody resi

down up to 5% in 2026. It's really driven by volumes. We'll see where pricing ultimately falls out. I don't want anyone to think that pricing is coming down in that market. You know, the impact may be less than what we saw in 2025 with significant pricing, but we'll see. But it's really, really volumes coming down that makes up that. I don't want to intimate that we know pricing is coming down. Thank you.

And our next question will come from the line of Jeff Hammond with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

hey good morning guys hey Jeff how are you doing great um maybe just um we talked a lot about applied just touch on commercial unitary you know orders Trends and and how you see that shaping up uh in 26. yeah I mean it's a great question look if I if I go back and look at 2025 applied was extremely strong um but but unitary was positive slightly I guess if I look forward to 2026, you know, look, we have a kind of model right now as flattish, the 2025. We'll see how that plays out as the year progresses. But, and again, it really depends on different growth rates that we're going to see in different verticals, because some are more apt to have unitary product or supplied systems. But right now, to answer your question, looking at it to be flattish in 2026.

Okay, great. And then just looking at your capex, I think you're going one to 2% of sales, you've kind of been in that one and a half to two range. But just, you know, talk to talk to me about what you've been doing behind the scenes to really ramp your capacity in the applied business, just given the strength, and what you need to do going forward, you know, given all that pipeline,

um you know in terms of capacity expansion for applied and maybe just touch on you know your ability to kind of continue to ramp on the labor side you know for the service business as well good question let me let me start i'll let chris talk more about the actual dollars being spent but um look when we think of capacity we really break it down into three different areas okay one is our four wall capacity and that's in our factories itself and that's what we control And I would tell you that we've been ramping there for a long time. And I think I told you in the, at the, in the third quarter call that, you know, our chiller capacity over the last, you know, two or three years is up over four X. Okay. So we've done a nice job there. And some of that's new builds. Some of that is just leaning out. Some of that is putting in lines and reducing inventory to create space. So there's a lot of goodness that's there. And I'm, I'm very comfortable with our capacity in that space. The other area we look at capacity is on our supply chain. And it's, you know, their ability could hinder us if we're not careful. So we spend a lot of time working with our supply chain partners on their capacity and making sure that they understand what our demands are going to be in the future, understand they know kind of like the robustness that we see in our pipelines so that they can anticipate as well. So that's another bucket that we look at and we're in good shape there. I think there's always opportunities to improve and our team's doing a great job of making sure that we have enough capacity there as our future needs will dictate. The third area that we look at is within our service business. And there really it's about being able to not only do the service on this equipment, but commission the equipment. So applied systems, we commission, right? So we go out to the, we're our own employees are out there before the mechanical contractor starts these systems up. We're out there making sure that everything is perfect before we start them up. And then we make sure that the system is operating the way it was designed before it gets turned over to the customer. And to be fair, We have over 7,500 technicians now on a global basis. So I feel very comfortable in our ability there to make sure that all these applied orders that we've been receiving, we're not only going to be able to manufacture, but we're also going to be able to make sure that we can commission on the job sites. So Chris, I don't know if you want to talk about the actual capital dollars.

Yeah, I mean, we remain a capex light in terms of intensity. You're right, Jeff, one and a half to 2% has been the capex spend to revenues over the last few years, and it's been able to support all the capacity expansions we needed to do. I would add, though, M&A has been a great option for us as well as we brought in businesses on air handling or industrial process cooling capacity for data centers. The M&A brings capacity as well into our four walls, and then it gives us a lot of optionality as to how we want the that production facility to operate, what products will it run and what can we expand into that as well? So it's organic and also some inorganic opportunities we've been able to expand capacity.

Appreciate the questions. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Jeff.

Our next question will come from the line of Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Hey, Joe. How are you? Good morning. Yeah, doing great. Thanks, Dave. So look, for all for good reason, there's always a focus on the US data center market. You take a look at your commercial HVAC bookings, though, in EMEA up mid teens, and some expectations that you could actually see some really robust growth in the data center market in EMEA. And I'm just wondering whether you're starting to see any of that already. And then how are you positioned geographically if things were to really accelerate?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. We see data centers really on a global basis, Joe. So it's not just in the Americas. I will tell you that the size of the data centers is dramatically different in Europe than it is here in the States. And you could almost, I mean, the data centers that are being built in Europe are probably about, you know, one-tenth the size of what's being built, the majority of what's being built now, or what's being certainly planned to be built here in the States. So I am hearing from some that they're going to be making much larger data centers in Europe, but we'll see how that plays out. But if it does, we're very well positioned. I mean, we have incredible portfolio products really on a global basis. And there is nuances that you will see in the product portfolio for preferences and data centers as you start to move around the world. And my comments on Europe, you can replicate them into Asia.

as well because it's again a very similar asia's actually more similar to to what we're seeing in europe right now got it that's helpful and then i guess maybe then just just double clicking on those orders you mentioned your priority verticals in america as most of them seeing broad-based growth where are you seeing kind of like the the the real growth in the emea side of the business

Yeah, I mean, we have less data there on the different verticals, but I would say it's, again, broad-based. We certainly see it in data centers. We certainly saw it in commercial as well, commercial office, that is, which is a focus area. We also see nice growth in Europe, as you would expect, in our services business. It's as broad-based as you would have in the Americas. We just have less granularity on the verticals and kind of like have a reporting mechanism on those verticals but if you if you ever come visit us in europe i think you'll see us being able to play across all the verticals and again the direct sales force really allows us to to pivot to where the opportunities are that's that's really on a global basis as well okay i'll leave it at that thanks dan all right thanks joe take care now

Our next question will come from the line of Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Hey, Jeff. Hey. Good-looking numbers here, guys. Congrats. Hey, I wonder if we could talk a little bit more about price-cost. Chris, you gave some color there, but I was just kind of curious. if you could kind of level set us on kind of what you absorbed on tariffs in 2025, what the wraparound might be, and then also just this, you know, pretty dramatic, you know, metal spike we are seeing, you know, gold's getting all the attention, but copper and other things have moved a lot. Just how dynamic might your pricing have to be here as we progress through 2026?

Well, I'm hoping it's less dynamic than what it had to be in 2025, Jeff, but that's the power of the business operating system and the models we have to take into account all of the costs that we can see. But your specific question, just given time on tariffs, we described it about a bit higher than $140 million of tariff cost in 2025 on our last call. We're in that range for what that cost was in 2025 for the full year. And think about that wrapping into 2026, we really have three quarters of that tariff cost in 25. Now you've got four quarters of that. So we expect it to be inflationary from a tariff perspective, maybe in that $50-ish million range in the ballpark. All in, maybe it's $200-ish million of costs that we'll make sure we price accordingly for. But the first step we do is we make sure we mitigate the tariff costs. So the numbers I'm quoting you are after mitigations. So we're continuing to work with suppliers on the short term to the long term to ultimately mitigate the costs and or move sources of supply to really not make this an area where we have to price. And if we do, we're not trying to make it a profit center. On commodities, we've had a program for well over a decade in terms of how we hedge. Think of copper and aluminum. In 2026 now, about half of our needs are hedged at this point. And so we'll continue to layer on hedges as we move throughout the year as we normally would. But we'll remain dynamic in terms of pricing as we see those commodities move. On steel, we have about a six-month lock in terms of pricing. So any pricing moves there impact us beyond six months. But I think a proven track record to stay ahead of inflation and make sure that we've got a positive on the dollars and the margins for price-cost.

Great. We're late in the hour. I'll leave it there. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks.

Our next question will come from the line of Nigel Coe with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Nigel, how are you?

Good, Dave. Good. How are you? So you said some very interesting comments. Well, first of all, I want to say well done on taking the imagery down. That's not easy, but definitely sets you up well for 2026. So well done there. Going back to the comments you made on the services intensity for chillers and data centers, I just want to make sure I understand that correctly, because obviously these aren't running 24-7, depending on the ambient temperature. But can you just remind us how the service tail on applied systems typically looks versus up on cost? And is that materially different for data centers? That would be an interesting comment.

Yeah, actually, it's a great question. And I think I could tell you right now, we think of it at the 8 to 10. You've heard us say that number before in an applied system, at least on a thermal management applied system. In data centers, look, to be honest with you, it's probably going to be a bit lower. And some of that we're still modeling. And there's a couple reasons for that, right? One is we could all sit there and speculate what the what the life expectancy is of a thermal management system in a data center. I know what it will run from a mechanical standpoint, and that doesn't change. But because of the efficiencies that you're going to see in the, if you just follow the track of innovations and how we've been able to improve efficiency over the last five years, if you roll that forward to the next five years, you may start to see some of these chillers have different lives other than the data center. Because you'd switch them out to be able to get power to divert back into the computing side of the equation versus into the thermal management side. So those are some of the variables that are kind of unknown right now. Um, but you know, the question that came in that I would try to answer was, is, Hey, if a chiller runs less, do you have the same service on it? And the reality of it is in a data center, think of it as, um, a chiller the the the fan side of the air side of the chiller is going to run as it does today the compressor compressing side of the chiller may run less but it still has to run and if you don't run it you're going to end up with problems so those are kind of the balances that we're working through so it's pretty dynamic and um we don't have it 100 dialed in but i would tell you we have a lot of people that are modeling that so we can understand it

Okay. No, that's clear.

Thanks, Dave. But there's a couple of things that are going to be the same, right? Response time, being on the job site, making sure that you have uptime, all that is going to be the same. Connected solutions is all going to be the same. So we'll still have a big, robust service business well in the future.

Yeah. Thanks, Dave. And then just one more crack at the revenue pricing. Just given the inflation wave that's coming through in that business, and And maybe, Chris, it doesn't sound like you want to put a pin onto the pricing. I just wondered, is that because the demand environment is too fluid, the raw material inflation impact is too fluid? I mean, any sense on why you're kind of – I don't know the mystery of pricing here, but just wondering what's kind of like driving that thinking around pricing? Yeah.

Well, I'll start with our team hasn't announced a price increase yet for 2026. I'm saying that, you know, we've got expectations for the year, but we'll continue to remain dynamic. Don't want to signal anything in advance, but, you know, we have a lot of confidence in the team that they're going to manage well throughout the year. Okay?

Okay. Yeah, that's okay.

Thanks. Okay. Thanks, Roger.

Our final question will come from the line of Steve Tusa with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for putting me in.

Hey, Steve. How are you? Glad you clarified that resi pricing comment because a few messages came in immediately when you said down. So obviously some sensitivity around that. But just the commercial HVAC side, can you help reconcile the 100% plus applied orders and the 35%?

total orders like what was down to kind of get it to that rate or is to apply just you know a smaller piece of that pie uh we saw growth in orders in both applied and unitary here in the in the in the fourth quarter uh unitary you know closer to that low single digit kind of range but it was positive um I guess I'd leave it there. I mean, it's pretty broad-brushed in terms of the verticals where we saw growth. Dave described the 12 of the 14 verticals.

Well, I mean, I guess if they're just 50-50 simplistically, wouldn't that be a lot higher of a total order number? Or is there services maybe in there or something?

Yeah, there's services that certainly would be part of that conversation as well in terms of order growth. We'd have to get back to you. Yeah, we could do the math, obviously. But you're also a little bit on comps. What's the prior comps as well? We have to look at that, too.

Okay. And then just thinking about this kind of trajectory, obviously very strong orders, strong backlog. In the first quarter, you're starting at like 7 to 8, exiting the year at a higher rate. And obviously these orders are very strong. Is there something outside of the core applied business? And I guess what I'm getting at is are there like a lot of like liquid cooling related orders? that are now coming through and pushing that number higher and driving the acceleration in the second half. I know you guys have come out with some really big launches on that front. Is that moving the needle on some of this?

Well, I think we're mixing orders versus revenue. So the revenue is more a function that we're going to see in the back half of the orders that we've already booked, Steve. So think of it as, If our last six months in commercial HVAC in the Americas, our orders are up over 30%. You can just start adding nine months almost on average to each of those to understand when it's going to ship out. And Europe is very similar. As I said, that was up the high teens level. So all that backlog is going to come up. To your question on are we seeing robust demand for other elements of the thermal management system, absolutely, certainly in our pipeline. Okay. As you can imagine, we're all over it, and the teams are just doing a great job there on the innovation side as well as on the front end talking to customers as to what we have in our portfolio.

Okay, and then one last one. Chris, can you just remind us what the standing kind of Tier 1, Tier 2 kind of raws basis so we can just kind of like do our own math on that inflation dynamic this year? Sure.

Yeah, Tier 1 is still around $750 million, and then the Tier 2 is around $5.5 to $6 billion in terms of size.

Great. Thanks for the details, as always.

All right. Thanks, Dave.

And that will conclude our question and answer session. I'll turn the conference back over to Zach Nagel for any closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone, for joining today's call. As always, we'll be around to take any questions that you may have today or in the coming days. We'll be on the road at a couple of conferences here in February and then into the rest of the quarter. So we look forward to seeing many of you on the road. Thanks very much. Bye.

This concludes our call for today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.