Standex International (SXI) Q4 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. Please note that the presentation accompanying management's remarks can be found on the Investor Relations portion of the company's website at www. standex. com. Please refer to STANDEX's safe harbor statement on slide 2. Matters that STANDEX management will discuss on today's conference call include predictions, estimates, expectations, and other forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You should refer to STANDEX's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, as well as other SEC filings and public announcements for a detailed list of risk factors. In addition, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion will include references to the non-GAP measures of EBIT, which is Earnings Before Interest and Taxes, We will also refer to other non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted operating income, adjusted net income from continuing operations, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted operating margin, free operating cash flow, and pro forma net debt to EBITDA.

Adjusted measures exclude the impact of restructuring, purchase accounting, amortization from acquired intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, and one-time items. These non-GAAP financial measures are intended to serve as a complement to results provided in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. STANDEX believes that such information provides an additional measurement and consistent historical comparison of the company's financial performance. On the call today is STANDEX'S CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT, AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER DAVID DUNBAR AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER AND TREASURER ADEMIR SARCEVIC.

Thank you, Chris. Good morning and welcome to our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026 conference call. A year ago, we made the claim that we are at an inflection point as a company and that our results in fiscal year 2026 would show that. I am happy to look back on the year and see that it has indeed played out. We have demonstrated we are a growing engineered components company. Total sales grew 5.5% organically in the year, propelled by our growth initiatives. In our fourth quarter, 73% of our sales were delivered by our engineered components businesses. These businesses serve large end markets providing a long runway of organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Our new product development efforts are now contributing meaningfully to sales, growing from $40 million to $67 million in the year.

The $27 million increase contributed 300 basis points to sales growth. Our sales to fast growth markets increased $80 million to $264 million, contributing 30% of sales. On July 2nd, we acquired the remaining 9.9% interest in Narayan, completing the acquisition of the Amran Narayan Group, now known as STANDEX GRID. Together with our new colleagues in STANDEX GRID, we are completely focused on meeting the rapidly growing needs of customers, building out the world's power infrastructure to support increasing living standards, electrification, replacement of an aging Western grid, and the current rapid build-out of data centers. I would like to thank our employees, our executives, and the Board of Directors for their efforts and continued dedication and support that drove our record in fiscal 2026.

I also want to take a moment to thank Alan Glass for his many contributions these past 10 years. Alan has recently decided to retire, and I will soon be announcing his replacement as we bring in a new Chief Legal Officer to help power STANDEX through the next leg of our journey.

Now, let's look at the results beginning on slide 3. In the fourth quarter, sales of $228.3 million increased 7.7% organically. Electronics grew 12.9% organically. New product sales grew approximately 43% to approximately $23 million. Sales in the fast growth markets were approximately $72 million, or more than 30% of sales. We had a record quarterly order intake of approximately $270 million. We are pleased with the momentum in the business reflected in an overall book to bill ratio of 1.18 and within electronics of 1.27. In fiscal year 2026, sales increased by more than $100 million and 5.5% organically. Electronics grew 7.5% organically. Q4 adjusted earnings per share were a record $2.45 per share, and we generated record free cash flow of $35 million.

Following record profitability in fiscal 2025, we again achieved record milestones with adjusted gross margin of 42%, adjusted operating income margin of 19.4%, and adjusted earnings per share of $8.74. On a sequential basis, we expect slightly higher revenue, driven by higher contributions from fast growth end markets and new product sales, and similar adjusted operating margin. On a year-on-year basis in fiscal first quarter 2027, we expect moderately higher revenue, driven by high single-digit to low double-digit organic growth from growing backlog in fast growth markets and increased new product sales, partially offset by the revenue impact of the market. We expect slightly to moderately higher adjusted operating margin as organic growth and realization of productivity actions are partially offset by growth investments.

For fiscal year 2027, we expect mid to high single digit sales growth with high single digit to low double digit organic growth and continued adjusted operating margin expansion. I am pleased with the momentum that we are building and launching new products. We expect to launch more than 20 new products in fiscal 2027, on top of more than 15 new products this past fiscal year. We expect new product sales, pro forma for the federal divestiture, to grow by $23 million to $90 million, adding nearly 300 basis points of organic growth in the year. Our sales into the fast-growing markets, such as space, defense, and grid, are expected to increase approximately 20% to greater than $310 million, constituting more than 30% of our total sales.

We are looking forward to Admir transitioning into the electronics business as president of electronics. This is a natural step. To be a CFO at a company like STANDEX is, in fact, to be a chief operating officer. Our consistent performance these past seven years owes a lot to Adamir having stayed close to the businesses. When there were early signs of issues to address or opportunities to expand, he would get into the details of the business, address the pricing, sourcing, or operating issues to help get things back on track. I will now turn the call over to Adamir to provide more insight as to how we will approach the single biggest opportunity in our business, the expansion of capacity in our grid business.

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. I am very excited to take on the role of Electronics President as we enter this new chapter in STANDEX's transformation to high-growth and high-performance company. Our Electronics business is exposed to several very robust and fast-growing end markets, such as grid, defense, and automation, and we are well-positioned to capture market opportunities through continued targeted investments in R&D and new products, Capacity expansion in grid while serving customers utilizing our customer intimacy approach. Our team is dedicated and accountable. Our products and solutions are robust. Our partnership with customers is strong. And I believe we have significant organic growth and margin expansion opportunities in years to come. Let's turn to slide four, which highlights our focus on capacity expansion within our electronics grid business.

One of my top priorities as electronics president is expanding capacity within our STANDEX grid business. Since I joined STANDEX as CFO, we never have had such an incredible opportunity for organic growth. When we acquired Emron Orion, their sales were approximately $100 million on an annual basis. We just closed FY26 with approximately $148 million in sales, and by fiscal 2030, we expect grid sales to grow to between $340 and $440 million. To get there, we have identified six capacity expansion objectives and have dedicated teams driving these important work streams. Key pieces of our capacity expansion efforts include productivity and automation, greenfield facility in Croatia, new lines in Mexico, expanding our footprint in Texas, and additional shifts on footprint in India.

Starting with productivity and automation, we are expecting capacity within existing facilities, adding up to $40 million in full-year capacity by fiscal 2030. This May, we open our new facility in Croatia. Filt as a direct response to customer We will now turn the call over to the U. S. market. By fiscal 2030, we believe Croatia will add approximately 75 million in annual capacity, while above our original 3-5 year estimate of 60 million. Croatia isn't just a new facility, it's a platform for our next phase of growth in Europe. In Mexico we have freed up space in our footprint to over 200 square feet with machinery on order and production on track to start in fiscal 2028.

This expansion is expected to add over 60 million in annual capacity by fiscal 2030. Finally, in India, additional shifts The FOOTBREET expansion will add $45 million and $50 million of annual capacity, respectively. These expansions will strengthen our positions in North America, India, and Middle East markets for low-to-medium voltage transformers. Now, I would like to discuss our financial performance in greater detail. Let's turn to slide 5, 4Q2026 summary. On a consolidated basis, total revenue increased approximately 2.8% year-on-year to $228.3 million. This reflected organic growth of 7.7%, partially offset by 4.5% impact from federal industries divestiture and 0.4% impact from foreign currency. Fourth quarter 2026 adjusted operating margin decreased 70 basis points year and year to 19.9%.

Adjusted earnings per share increased 7.4% year and year to a record $2.45. Net cash provided by operating activities was $40.5 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 compared to $33.4 million a year ago. Capital expenditures were $5.5 million compared to $8.6 million a year ago. As a result, we generated fiscal four-quarter free cash flow of $35 million compared to $24.9 million a year ago. Now please turn to slide 6, and I will begin to discuss our segment performance and outlook, beginning with our engineer component segments. Electronics revenue increased 12.1% year-on-year to a record $129.1 million, driven by organic growth of 12.9%, partially offset by 0.8% impact from foreign currency. Organic growth was driven by sales into fast growth markets and increased new product sales.

Adjusted operating margin of 27.2% in Fiscal 4-Quarter 2026 decreased 140 basis points year and year due to growth investments and transitory operational issues in the edge business partially offset by high volume and pricing initiatives. Excluding edge operational issues and other one-time items, adjusted operating margin would have increased year and year. Our book to bill in fiscal fourth quarter was 1.27, with orders of approximately $165 million. Sequentially, in fiscal first quarter 2027, we expect slightly higher revenue, reflecting higher sales in the fast growth end markets, and increased new product sales. We expect moderately higher adjusted operating margin. On a year-on-year basis, we expect double-digit organic growth. Aerospace and defense revenue increased 18.3% to $37.9 million, driven by organic growth of 18.4%.

Organic growth was driven by increased project activity in the defense end market. Adjusted operating margin of 22.5% increased 410 basis points year-on-year, primarily due to higher volume and project mix. Frequently, we expect moderately lower revenue due to less favorable project timing and moderately lower adjusted operating margin. On a year-on-year basis, we expect double-digit organic growth. Now turn to slide 7 for discussion of the scientific and engraving and hydraulic segments. Scientific revenue increased 5% to $18.8 million due to organic growth. Organic growth was driven A The current available liquidity is approximately $148 million. At the end of the fourth quarter, STANDEX had net debt of $339.2 million compared to net debt of $448 million at the end of fiscal fourth quarter 2025.

Our net leverage ratio currently stands at 1.8. In fiscal first quarter 2027, we expect interest expense of approximately $7 million. STANDEX's long-term debt at the end of fiscal quarter 2026 was $518 million. Cash and cash acclimatis totaled $178.7 million. We declared out 248 consecutive quarterly cash dividend of 34 cents a share and approximately 6.3% increase year on year. In fiscal 2027, we expect capital expenditures between $45 million and $55 million, primarily due to grid growth investments. I will now turn the call over to David for concluding remarks.

Thank you, Adamir. Before I move into concluding remarks, I would like to comment about the recent events in Japan. This past week, an earthquake struck southern Kumamoto, the location of our Sanyu relay facility. No employees were injured, and there was very minimal impact on our site, though some of our colleagues had damage to their homes. Our hearts are with our employees and their families as they recover from this natural disaster. Please turn to slide 9.

To summarize, I am very pleased to see the continued organic growth in the fourth quarter with a book to bill of 1.18. Organic growth was driven by our electronics and aerospace and defense segments, which grew 12.9% and 18.4% respectively. We will continue to align our organic and inorganic growth investments around secular end markets and new products that expand our presence in engineered components and deepen our customer relationships. Our acquisition strategy will continue to focus on businesses with accretive margins, exposure to fast growth markets, and delivery of custom solutions. We expect fiscal 2027 sales to increase mid to high single digits over fiscal 2026, driven by high single to low double-digit organic growth with continued margin expansion.

We anticipate margin progression as we move through the year. Considering the federal industry's divestiture, we expect to be on track to achieve greater than $1.1 billion in sales and greater than 23% adjusted operating margin by the end of fiscal year 2028. We will now open the line for questions.

Hey, good morning, Mike. And I expected grilling, so that's okay. Look, I mean, the grid expansion, as we said on the call, and I think as you know, is our top priority for the company in the years to come, because the market opportunities are phenomenal, and our opportunity to penetrate that market is significant. So we do have, you know, we call it kind of maybe a tiger team. We do have a team that solely focus on grid expansion kind of across these different sites. And this, Mike, is kind of a multi-year project, multi-year projection. So if I kind of walk you through this waterfall, you know, in terms of productivity and automation, that's primarily allowing lean transformation, Kaizen events, primarily focused on our key lines in India.

We have a team that's in India right now We are dedicated to work with our local management in order to get it accomplished. David and I have weekly updates on progress on that transformation. And frankly, out of this $40 million that we have identified, we feel that we can achieve a significant portion of that, or maybe half, within FY27. You know, then if you think about kind of Croatia and Mexico, there's a separate team that's working on those two specific sites. We have a lot of the sites. The Croatia site is up and running. Mexico, we freed up the space. We are starting to do some shipments out of there. We think within FY27, we can probably get $10-15 million out of those two sites.

The other thing that we have done, we actually set up what we call a fourth shift in our Houston facility, in our current Amaranth Houston facility. What it really means is that the plant is going to be running probably about 24-7 going forward, and that should probably give us another $5 million worth of additional capacity. And then as you kind of move forward to this India additional shifts, you know, that's really putting a second shift in our plant in India. We think that's probably going to give us another $5 to $10 million in FY27. The Texas expansion is FY28 event followed with the India footprint expansion So we do have teams dedicated on all of this We have work streams that manage each one of these you kind of go from our starting point of FI sales and you kind of add what I just said We feel pretty good we can get to that $180-$200 million range in sales in FI-27, and then we will be set up really nicely as we get to FI-28 and FI-29, but we've got to get it done.

It is not part of the slide. We do a few million dollars from our legacy edge business into grid. It supports basically diagnostic equipment and instrumentation that go into grid distribution and monitoring systems. We are exploring ways to combine our sales force so we can ramp that up. That's not on this page that Adam showed you. Longer term though, we're quite interested in this evolution and development of an 800 volt DC architecture, which will be not only in data centers, but just it will be an architecture across all electrification and intelligent systems. And so we're working on development of products to support that architecture. That's a few years away from making a penetration in the industry, but we're working on that.

And long term, that's a big opportunity for us.

Yeah, you know, in the investor presentation that we started using a month or so ago, we showed a projection of our missile business, which I think last year was $9 million this year in the teens. We see that growing to between 40 and 80 million over the next four years. We're confident in that 40 million number. We are getting increased levels of orders for the programs we're on, which is SAM-3, PRISM. We do parts that go into Patriot Systems as part of our legacy electronics business. We also are doing development on future generation missile programs. So, yeah, we do see upside to that, and it is quite active, as you say.

Thank you, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

Yeah, hi. Good morning, Chris. It's Adam here. It's not just grid. Grid is extremely strong for us, been strong for us, but we are seeing a pretty nice uptick and increase in demand in kind of our core businesses, the tact and edge. I mean, if you kind of look at our book to bill in the last quarter, you know, every single one of our business units was over 1.2 book to bill. So we are seeing a very nice tailwind kind of into the net, into this fiscal year. And then if you kind of look at our sales progression over the FY26, we did, you know, I think $110 million in Q1 of 26, $115 in Q2, $120 in Q3, We expect that to continue to increase gradually through FY27.

So when we say, for example, a double-digit organic growth in electronics in Q1 of FY27, that's more like high teams or low 20% if you compare it to the base of 110. So between these new products that launches between kind of a general economic strength we are seeing in the APAC region right now and all this strength and demand in grid, we We feel pretty confident that we'll be able to achieve the double-digit organic growth in electronics in FY27. And if you think work our way, it could be higher than that.

Margin in green are continuing to be very strong. It's kind of in line to historical levels. They have not declined.

Yeah, sure, Chris. Great question. As you kind of know us for a while, whenever we look to do an acquisition, we always want to make sure there's a management continuity. We look at kind of few things for every acquisition. We look at strategy, we look at, obviously, financially it has to make sense, and then culturally. As part of that assessment, we always want management to stick around for a few years and help us learn the business and help us grow the business to the next level. We have been working together now with Amra and Orion in leadership for almost two years. The partnership and collaboration has been exceptional. We always thought it was going to be strong and good, but it's been even better than we thought.

It's really a great relationship. And you are right, we didn't have the right to start purchasing shares until year four, so we reached out to the owners to see if we can renegotiate an early buy-in. And we did have to pay a little bit of a higher multiple based on the trillion 12-month EBITDA. We paid about 15 times multiple to settle those shares. And the reason, frankly, if you think about future growth and investments we have to make, and in order to expedite some of these decisions, And frankly, to remove some of the accounting complexities around tracking how these investments are made, who makes it, what adjustments to be made, we approached them and we settled the debt at the $64 million or above 15 times trillion dollars money.

The other thing I will tell you, if you add what we paid in October 2024 for the business, and you add this additional $64 million and compare it to the trailing 12 month EBIT of FY26, the multiple would be about seven to eight times. So it's a great deal for STANDEX. We feel also it's a great deal for Emma and Orion and ownership and people because it's really one of those things where one plus one makes three. And we are very excited to continue working with them. So that's the story behind it.

Thanks, Chris.

Good morning.

Yeah, let me start with that, and I can pick up. So the transitory issues, let's just start with that. In our agile, the business we used to call magnetics, we implemented an ERP system in a couple of large plants, complex plants in America. We've got some new folks involved in driving. We see that turning the corner. So, it truly is transitory. We'll get our arms around it and get that back on track.

Yeah, and then Ross, if you kind of think about margin progression in electronics and in FY27, we clearly see an opportunity to expand the margin, even with some of these growth investments that we are making. So, it is our objective to get to that 30% number, you know, pretty soon.

You know, Mexico, we already have a facility. We have kind of a fixed cost base already. So, you know, we don't think that's going to give us a lot of margin. You know, I don't think that's going to give us a margin compression. So there are some investments we have to make in people, but again, all in all, we feel as we kind of closed FY26 that we have margin expansion opportunities in FY27 and will continue driving productivity and price to offset some of those growth investments and get the margins up to where we think they should be.

Yeah, I mean, like we said, we see margin expansion in the year at the same time. We're adding a handful of people to the grid expansion. We continue to grow selectively the engineering teams for new product developments, and we're paying for that with leverage and gross margin improvements.

Yeah, yeah, no. The overall book to bill was about 1.27, but the book to bill, Ross, for each of the, even for the legacy businesses in the quarter was over 1.2. So strong book to bill kind of across the board.

Yeah, no, as far as Japan, which is kind of a bread and butter, you know, re-switch business, we do have additional capacity in Japan to be able to service some of the higher demand. We probably think we can do about 20-25% more in terms of units produced in COFU in FY27 versus what we did in FY26. We have some machines online recently. We have a couple more coming online in the year.

That's right. The orders are strong. As you know, it takes a little while to convert from backlog to sales. We are a couple of quarters behind, but we feel good about book to bill. We will be able to build with what the orders are, and we are just going to continue to execute and get our sales up. With the capacity. With the capacity, right.

Look, we feel pretty good that we can hit that number that I just knew that I went through earlier on the call between 180 to 200. You know, we are moving as quickly as we can, Ross. Some of this takes time as far as getting the machinery in, but, you know, we are optimistic that we can capture the market opportunity.

You got it, guys.

Yes.

Well, let me say a word, then let Adam or jump in. I recall when we acquired the business, in managing expectations, we said, you know, plan on 50% growth. They've been growing faster than that, but we need to get to know them. They need to get to know us. We need to have confidence in our ability to add capacity and understand the certainty of demand. Well, now we're putting out, we're pretty confident in this 20 plus percent, and there may be upside to that as we execute. We tried to reflect in here, we have high confidence in that dark shaded lower number, which is 170 million increase 150 to 340. And then the additional 100 on there is, there's a little upside to all of these if the demand continues and we execute well.

So it's just to recognize that we live in a somewhat uncertain world, so we plan for a scenario of capacity expansion. And we're confident that within that range of 340 to 440 is where we'll end up.

Yeah, that's right. I couldn't say it better.

Well, Adam, you did a great job explaining it. Some of these things are expanding right now, so we'll see a little more capacity every month from the lean efforts across the businesses. Mexico and Croatia are producing, so they're ramping up. Texas doesn't come online until next year, so that's maybe a long pull, but that comes in in the later years of this, as is the India footprint. Everything else will deliver capacity this year.

That's right.

Yeah, so Matt, you know, we always said that A&D should be really around 20% plus of adjusted operating margin. And, you know, we did close a little higher than that last quarter. You know, the business is a little bit lumpy, as you know, depending on project mix. So you could have one quarter, you know, 22%, next quarter 18%. But we do believe, as you look at it over a 12-month period, that business should be over 20% operating margin. They do a really good job supporting the key customers. They are running some productivity initiatives in the plants to make them more efficient. And the market demand is there, so we are pretty excited about not only the margin opportunity in A&D, but also the organic growth opportunity as well.

And we do feel that a 20% operating margin for A&D is not an unreasonable expectation.

Yeah, no M&A. I think if we do two years at 12%, we get there. You know, when we put that number out, it was about 18 months ago. We explained the contributions to that new product sales, fast growth vectors. Those two parts of the business, they're doing their job. They're growing as we expect or even faster. But we also said there's a 3% general industry growth. That kind of lagged for the last year and a half. So that is starting to pick up. So we're confident about the things we control. In the range that we gave looking forward to next year, upper single digit to low teens, you know, we get in that range. That keeps us on track.

And I'd say if you want to handicap it, we said by fiscal year 28 we'll be at that range. Maybe it slides by a quarter or two, but we're very confident about the progression of our growth initiatives and how they'll get us there.

Yeah, Matt, if we just look at kind of the opportunities within electronics and A&D, you know, we are pretty optimistic about our opportunity to capture some of this growth in the end markets as well as some of the new products we have coming up. So that's going to be a growth engine.

All right.

All right. Thank you. I want to thank everyone for joining us for this call. Well, as I mentioned at the beginning of the remarks, we enter 2027 a new company. We are truly an engineered components company. We sell picks and shovels to a variety of industries. We work tightly with our customers. Our new product development engine is contributing meaningfully to growth. Our fast growth markets are over 30% of our sales now. We serve large markets that provide a long runway of growth, both organically and inorganically, in these large attractive markets. It's so gratifying to see this play out for us. I want to thank all the employees, our board of directors, the shareholders, who create an ecosystem of advice and input and reflection to keep us moving in the right direction.

I just want to thank Alan Glass, who's here with us now. This is about the 40th call or something you've been with us. He's been through many of the major events over the years. We appreciate Alan's contributions over the years.

So with that, we thank you all, and we look forward to reporting to you at the end of this next quarter on our first quarter 27. Thank you.