Ufp Technologies (UFPT) Q1 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. With me on today's call is our CEO and Chairman, Jeff Bailey. Today, we will make some forward-looking statements within the meeting of the U. S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, The accuracy of which is subject to risks and uncertainties. Wherever possible, we will try to identify those forward-looking statements by using words such as believe, expect, anticipate, pursue, forecast, and similar expressions.

Our forward-looking statements are based on our estimates and assumptions as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our estimates or views on any subsequent date. Please refer to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information and the risk factors in our most recent 10K, including disclosures of the factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which include organic sales growth, adjusted gross margin, adjusted operating income, adjusted SG&A, adjusted earnings per share, and EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA.

A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures discussed in this call is contained in the associated press release and is available in the Investor Relations section of our website. I will now turn the call over to Jeff.

Thank you, Ron, and thank you to everyone joining the call. I am pleased with our first quarter results and start to the year, including important progress on our strategic growth initiatives. Our revenue grew 4.1%, with medical sales growing 5.9%, and our non-medical sales declining 15%, as we continue to focus our efforts on best-fit, fast-growing segments in the med tech space. Growth in our robotic surgery, patient services and support, and interventional and surgical segments of 7%, 11%, and 15% respectively were partially offset by declines in wound care as two major customers slowed temporarily due to excess inventory. EPS grew more slowly than revenue due in part to, number one, startup costs related to our four simultaneous program launches, each of which is slowly ramping up and expected to make meaningful contributions in the second half of the year.

Number two, softer results at AJR versus Q1 of 2025 as they continue to work through their labor inefficiency issues related to turnover following our e-verify or legal right-to-work process last year. And number three, non-recurring legal expenses related to a cyber attack and the CEO transition. A lot of exciting things are happening on the business expansion front. In addition to the four successful program launches, three of those four customers have already asked us to double our capacity on the new programs.

We are also adding new buildings in both Santiago DR and La Romana DR to expand capacity and accommodate forecast growth in patient services and support and robotic surgery. In both locations, we are co-investing with our customers and will take possession of the buildings in the second quarter of this year. We are also in the planning stages to add capacity in the APAC region to meet growing demand in Asia.

Our new product development labs in La Romana and Grand Rapids are performing well, adding new programs and new talent to meet growing customer demand. On the acquisition front, we are reviewing multiple opportunities. Although we have been outbid on a couple of recent opportunities, we remain disciplined in our approach to vetting and valuing strategic acquisitions. The three acquisitions we completed in 2025 and the four in 2024 are all performing well and have increased our value to customers and strengthened our position in the market. Mitch Rock is excited to take over as CEO in June and is well prepared to succeed.

We have a deep team of talented managers supporting him who understand our strategy and how they fit in. This team together with our vendor partners adds significant value to our blue chip customers in growing market segments Each of these three critical components of our success our team our customers and our vendors Thank you Thank you, Jeff.

Before reviewing operating results, I would like to give a brief update on tariffs and the impact of the conflict in Iran on our raw material input costs. In general, effective tariffs are net down from our last update. This should have a positive prospective impact on margins. Additionally, as our suppliers seek refunds from the government, we will be looking for these to flow through to us in the form of vendor credits.

Counting these savings are raw material inflationary increases caused by the increased price of oil stemming from the conflict in Iran. It is difficult to estimate the ultimate impact as the news changes daily, and therefore, the price of oil has been volatile. It remains our expectation that we will pass these through to our customers.

Moving to operations, as Jeff mentioned, overall sales were up 4%, fueled by a 6% increase in medical sales. Strength in this area was driven by our robotic-assisted surgery, patient services and support, and interventional and surgical submarkets. As anticipated, organic sales growth for the quarter was essentially flat as we are slowly ramping our new programs and our non-medical business continues to soften.

We anticipate that the new program revenue growth will accelerate in the second half of the year. In addition, approximately $1 million in sales pushed into the second quarter due to a cyber event at one of our key customers. Of note, sales to our two largest customers collectively grew 7.5% in the first quarter.

Gross profit as a percentage of sales or gross margin increased to 28.8% from 28.5% last year. This improvement was despite continued labor inefficiencies at HAR, which, although diminishing, are still impacting cost of sales. Helping to drive the improvement was a more than 200% increase in revenue in Santiago, Dominican Republic, enabling us to leverage fixed overhead costs at this location.

SG&A expenses for our first quarter of 2026 increased by $2.2 million to $21 million. This is largely due to approximately $750,000 in wages and benefits for back office investments made at various times during 2025 to support our larger organization, as well as approximately half a million dollars in non-cash equity compensation. We also incurred approximately half a million dollars in non-recurring legal expenses due to the cyber breach incident in mid-February, as well as the anticipated CEO transition.

Adjusted operating margin for the first quarter was 16.7% of sales, and adjusted earnings per diluted share outstanding was $2.48, up slightly from last year. We generated approximately $3.2 million in cash from operations during our first quarter. This was lower than is typical as a much stronger March sales month created a correspondingly high working capital need. Since March 31st, we have paid down approximately $4 million in debt. Capital expenditures were $1.7 million during our first quarter, and we ended with a leverage ratio of approximately 1.14 times.

With that, I now turn it back to the operator for questions.

Sure. Thanks, Brett. So the 7 growth was a blend but it is primarily anchor programs at this or existing programs at this point The new programs that we launched are still in their infancy stage but over time they will be a bigger and bigger component of our growth So we are pleased with the start to the year in the robotic surgery area, particularly at the 7%. It was a little higher than we had originally forecast.

With respect to – was the second part of the question? I'm sorry.

Yeah, our business is becoming more and more diverse, more and more diverse within intuitive with additional programs and more and more diverse with additional customers. I think you'll continue to see less of a dominant position in that one customer as we go forward.

Yeah, I mean, three of the four programs are brand new, and one was a transfer. And so the three new programs, each of those customers has already asked us to at least double our capacity with them. So three very successful launches, but the startup revenue still is small. So the revenue will ramp into Q2 and be more robust in Q3 and Q4 and then continue on. And as we add new capacity, those three programs will be meaningful contributors. Two were robotic surgery, and one was an infection prevention.

Yeah, absolutely. So the dominant drop was in automotive, which I think is going to be the new normal as we literally phase out of this market. There was also a softer side in the aerospace and defense, and that will flip. We already have some activity that's going to take that from slowing back to growing. But I think you'll see advanced components continue to be little to no growth over time, and certain markets like automotive we will completely phase out of.

You're welcome.

Yes, absolutely. So the startup costs relate to getting the whole team there prepared, trained, et cetera, before the volume follows. So all those hires have been made, those people have been trained, and as the volume ramps up, you know, we'll be absorbing those costs. And so the fixed costs won't go up, but the revenue will. So I think you'll see just a smooth plus. They're very slow starts. You know, we'll ship a handful of parts and then a pallet, and then eventually they'll sort of turn on the spigot. And by the second half of the year, I think it'll be robust contributions from all three of those brand new programs.

So in La Romana, this will be our sixth building. And so, you know, it's not exactly even how much capacity it adds, but it's approximately one-sixth more capacity. And so that's primarily for robotic surgery. We set up a big infection prevention program in one of the other buildings. So the La Romana campus is dominantly robotic surgery. In Santiago, we're adding our third building, and that one is predominantly patient services and support. And that will probably stay that way for the time being. So if we have new low-cost country applications, we'll probably be directing them towards La Ramana in the short term because that team is very experienced in their quality systems and everything have been going for decades, whereas Santiago is a little more of a startup situation still.

You're welcome, Justin.

So these are both I mean they large customers within wound care but not necessarily large customers within the whole of UFP TECHNOLOGIES Both had inventory issues that they thought were in the sort of eight range of impact to us But at the same time, we have two major programs that were in the development stage in wound care. So I'm still long-term very bullish on wound care. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in this area. So to answer your question, probably a three-quarter impact from the slowdown of wound care and then back to normal, and then probably next year we'd be overlaying some new programs.

Yes, absolutely. So with respect to the transfers, we think in terms of three major programs. So number one, completely transferred and running at rate. Number two, now completely transferred and so about to ramp up in rate. So we had sort of a tripling of volume over the last, you know, 12 months, and that will continue to grow. Program number three has not really started. So we have the space, the lease, we've got the equipment that's shown up on site, but there's a long sort of The PAP and protocol that we have to go through before that one will get up and running, that may take more than a year, frankly, to be a meaningful contributor to Santiago.

With respect to AJR, as Santiago comes up, it takes some pressure off AJR. So we have a lot of employees in Chicago. We've really fueled up or geared up quickly to get our backlog down. The problem is not only did we have backlog, but our customer was growing rapidly. So we've been working quite a bit of overtime with a less efficient crew, and so that overtime is already beginning to subside a little.

And then as we transform more work, the less efficient employees will sort of naturally fall off, and the ones that are most efficient and eligible for overtime and incentives, et cetera, will be the ones that stay. So I expect to see a smooth plus on that. With respect to progress, between Q3 and Q4, I think we cut the problem about in half. Between Q4 and Q1, we made about a 25% improvement. So there's still a ways to go, but I think it will accelerate when we ramp up in Santiago, because again, we have to keep all employees, whether efficient or not right now, just because we're trying to get out of backlog situation, and then we'll end up with a more efficient crew when we're done, a smaller, more efficient crew in Illinois.

Yeah, we have a number of discussions underway. I would say that it's a little quiet right now, frankly. You know, there was some big deals that went through that we bid on a couple unsuccessfully, which we are absolutely fine with, by the way. And if we get outbid, we'd rather get outbid by a lot than miss it by a little. So we're very disciplined in our process, both vetting strategically, vetting for culture, and then vetting for value. We do have some small ones that we're working on, and we do have still one very large one that's percolating in the background that will probably take quite a while to come to fruition if it does.

But the perfect deals for us are more the medium-sized ones, and there's not as many of those as we'd like to see in the pipeline, but we are looking at deals every single week. I mean, we have meetings with prospects every single week. So the pipeline's constantly being refilled and then vetted, and some stuff falls off. So, I mean, I still believe that over the next multiple years, acquisition growth will still be 50% of our overall growth. It's just hard to time. That's it.

You're welcome.

Yes, thank you, Operator, and thank you to everybody for joining the call. Just as a close, this is my last call as CEO, and I really appreciate all the support of our shareholders. I'm super excited about the future of the company. UFP is still the largest investment I have by multiples of greater than 10 over the next largest stock, and it's the most exciting stock in my portfolio.

I think the team of people taking over is super fired up and super excited, and it's a very deep, deep team of people. And so Mitch is well respected. He's ready to go, and he's well prepared to succeed. I will be there for the next year as executive chair to support him with acquisitions, key strategic hires, et cetera.

But I just wanted to say thank you, and I appreciate everybody.