Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the First Quarter 2026 Generac Holdings Inc. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kris Rosemann, Director, Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us this morning. With me today is Aaron Jagdfeld, President and Chief Executive Officer; and York Ragen, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin our call today by commenting on forward-looking statements.

Certain statements made during this presentation as well as other information provided from time to time by Generac or its employees may contain forward-looking statements and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in these forward-looking statements. Please see our earnings release or SEC filings for a list of words or expressions that identify such statements and the associated risk factors. In addition, we will make reference to certain non-GAAP measures during today's call. Additional information regarding these measures, including reconciliation to comparable U.S.

GAAP measures, is available in our earnings release and SEC filings. I will now turn the call over to Aaron.

Thanks, Kris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our first quarter results reflect a return to strong growth as net sales increased 12% year-over-year with healthy gross margin performance and robust operating leverage. Growth during the quarter was led by a 28% increase in our Commercial and Industrial segment sales primarily driven by continued momentum in the data center end market and the almond acquisition.

First quarter adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.3% expanded significantly from the prior year and was stronger than anticipated, driven by strong execution, favorable sales mix and lower-than-expected input costs and operating expenses. Given our first quarter outperformance, the continued strength in our C&I segment, including an increase in projected global data center revenue, and the expected contribution from the acquisition of Enercon, we are raising our full year net sales and adjusted EBITDA margin outlook this morning. Now discussing our performance by segment in more detail. We're continuing to progress through the final stages of vendor approval with 2 hyperscale data center customers, and we are very confident that we'll be able to secure meaningful future volume commitments from these accounts.

As previously disclosed, we received a nonbinding notice to proceed for approximately $600 million in 2027 deliveries with a certain hyperscale customer, and we have begun discussing site level specifications for these projects as we prepare to ramp our supply chain and production to meet this accelerating demand. We believe the successful navigation of these rigorous approval processes will solidify Generac as a top-tier global supplier of large megawatt diesel backup power generators in the years ahead. Importantly, we have also realized significant order activity from both new and existing data center customers, increasing our current backlog to more than $700 million, which does not include the anticipated impact of the notice of reset opportunity mentioned above and represents an increase of approximately $300 million since our fourth quarter update in mid-February.

This backlog growth provides visibility through 2027 even before considering the significant expected contribution from other hyperscale related opportunities and ongoing momentum with nonhyperscale customers. As we prepare for meaningful growth in large megawatt generator shipments in the coming quarters, our new facility in Sussex, Wisconsin, remains on track to begin production in the second half of this year, supporting the expected increase in our domestic generator manufacturing and assembly capacity for these products to more than $1 billion by the fourth quarter. We believe this expanded footprint will allow us to capture an increasing share of the rapidly growing demand for backup power solutions from large data center customers.

And together with our international C&I production base, provides us with unique global flexibility and scale to serve this market. Additionally, on April 1, we completed the previously announced acquisition of Enercon, a leading designer and manufacturer of generator enclosures and switchgear, -- this acquisition enhances our competitive positioning for large megawatt generators by giving us direct access to the design and manufacturing processes that are an important element of the bespoke content included with large megawatt generators. Additionally, our ability to invest in additional capacity for these highly customized genset packages will allow us to solve for a growing industry bottleneck and enable us to better control overall customer lead times for our products.

By bringing these packaging capabilities in-house, we expect to expand our margin profile, further improving the profitability for products sold into the markets for these products, including data center applications. In addition, Enercon's expertise in other product categories such as switchgear and packaged electronics controls also enables our participation in interesting adjacent market opportunities, which we are currently evaluating as we fully integrate this business into our C&I segment. During the first quarter, shipments to our domestic industrial distributor channel increased from the prior year and project quoting activity remains solid to start the year.

While product lead times for this channel have continued to normalize over the last several quarters, we expect modest growth for the full year, supported by stable near-term end market demand as well as our continuing investments in distribution that are helping to drive market share gains. Order rates from domestic telecom customers improved sequentially during the quarter, providing visibility to better than previously expected growth for the remainder of the year. Our telecom customers continue to invest in further hardening of their networks, as dependence on wireless communications increases and global tower and network hub counts are expected to continue to grow well into the future.

Additionally, the evolving telecom and digital infrastructure landscape is expanding our opportunity set with new and existing customers. We are working to leverage our track record of highly engineered solutions, market expertise and customer relationships in traditional telecom applications to capitalize on these opportunities, including data center adjacent applications. Domestic mobile product shipments to both national and independent rental equipment customers exceeded our expectations during the quarter and increased at a strong rate from the prior year. The acquisition of Allmand in January contributed to the strong year-over-year growth and outperformed our prior expectations with respect to both sales and adjusted EBITDA contribution.

Many of our rental customers have begun to invest in new equipment as part of a refleeting cycle, and this timely acquisition has both broadened our customer base for mobile products and provided us with additional capacity and flexibility within our domestic manufacturing footprint. Additionally, robust order rates from our existing national rental customers are contributing to our increased overall net sales outlook for 2026. International shipments also increased at a strong rate year-over-year, driven primarily by revenue from products sold to the data center end market, global shipments of our controlled solutions and the favorable impact from foreign currency.

Sales increased across most regions, partially offset by softness in the Middle East and Latin American regions, resulting from geopolitical instability and trade policy uncertainty. With the strong start to the year, we are increasing our full year 2026 C&I segment net sales guidance as a result of the increased expectations across our data center, telecom and rental markets as well as contributions from the Enercon acquisition. This is partially offset by softness in certain international regions as previously mentioned. We now expect C&I segment net sales to increase in the mid- to high 20s percent range, which represents an increase from our prior guidance for growth in the low to mid-20s percent range for this segment.

And now I'd like to provide an update on our residential segment for both the quarter and the year. At our Investor Day in March, we introduced Generac Home a new organizational structure within our residential segment that brings together our home standby, portable generator and energy technology teams into a single group. As our residential backup power and energy technology solutions are increasingly integrated, this combination enables us to better leverage synergies across our product development, supply chain, operations, sales and marketing and customer service capabilities. The unification of these teams will allow us to further streamline our software platforms to better serve our customers as well as accelerate the development of products and solutions to help homeowners solve for the increasingly -- increasing power reliance, resiliency and cost challenges they are facing.

Importantly, the efficiencies resulting from this new structure reflect the continued recalibration of our clean energy operating expenses and are expected to enable cost savings that support our projected residential segment adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in the coming years. We've already begun to realize these benefits, as evidenced by the expansion of our residential segment EBITDA margins by nearly 500 basis points as compared to the prior year first quarter, driven largely by lower operating expenses in the current quarter. Looking at our first quarter residential segment results in more detail, home standby generator sales were approximately flat from the prior year with higher pricing offsetting lower volumes as compared to a strong prior year period that included the benefit from an active 2024 hurricane season.

The current quarter's performance was slightly ahead of our expectations as we experienced stronger-than-anticipated demand following winter storm firm. This event and the related media coverage preceding it helped drive awareness for our products, resulting in strong year-over-year growth in home consultations for home standby generators and higher shipments of portable generators. However, despite the elevated outage activity from winter storm firm, overall power outage activity for the first quarter was approximately in line with the long-term baseline average. Activations or installations of home standby generators declined as expected from the first quarter of 2025, primarily driven by markets that were impacted by elevated hurricane activity in the second half of 2024. We expect activations will return to growth in the second half of this year, underpinned by our assumption for a return to a more normal baseline average power outage environment as compared to the exceptionally soft outage environment experienced in the second half of 2025. Our residential dealer network expanded further during the quarter and now includes more than 9,500 dealers, representing an increase of approximately 300 from the prior year.

Continuing interest in the home standby category from these partners provides us with further confidence in the significant growth opportunity that remains for home standby generators as contractors continue to see value with their involvement in the category. Additionally, as we continue to integrate the teams within our new Generac home organization, we intend to also unify our distribution networks with the goal of providing homeowners and channel partners greater access to a wider range of home energy solutions with enhanced service and support capabilities. First quarter sales of our residential solar and storage solutions decreased from the prior year as expected following the successful completion of our Department of Energy program in Puerto Rico.

Throughout the quarter, we continued to execute against our plan of ramping production of Power Micro, the first Generac branded microinverter product with a contract manufacturing partner here in the U.S. The Power Micro product offering is expected to deliver strong gross margin contribution as sales increase throughout the second half of 2026 and into 2027. The attractive margin profile for these products, together with our ongoing focus on operational efficiencies and within the new Generac home structure are expected to contribute to our longer-term residential segment margin expansion. A significant focus for the Generac home business is to market and sell our differentiated residential energy ecosystem with ecobee positioned as the energy management hub of the home.

An important metric, Ecobee's connected home count grew to -- continued to grow in the quarter to more than 5 million homes with service attach rates further increasing and providing us with a growing high-margin recurring revenue stream to complement Ecobee's expanding hardware market share. Profitability continued to improve as well with Ecobee delivering its first positive adjusted EBITDA during the first quarter, which is normally a seasonally softer quarter for these products. We are expecting continued strong growth in Ecobee shipments for the full year 2026 and as a result, we believe the benefits of a scaling top line, together with a strong gross margin profile and disciplined operating expense investment will support continued improvement in profitability into the future.

In closing this morning, our first quarter results and increased 2026 outlook provide an early look at the significant earnings growth potential of our business given the dramatic sales increase in our C&I segment, healthy gross margin performance and realization of strong operating leverage. Based on our continued progress in porting multiple hyperscale data center customers, combined with the improved competitive positioning and profitability resulting from the recent Enercon acquisition, our confidence in capturing a growing share of the generational growth opportunity in the data center market has only increased.

Additionally, the megatrends of lower power quality and higher power prices remain firmly intact and continue to support long-term growth expectations for our Residential segment, highlighted by the $50-plus billion penetration opportunity that we believe exists for home standby generators. We remain guided by our powering a Smarter World enterprise strategy, and we believe that we are on the cusp of a special moment in the history of Generac as a result of the more balanced growth drivers we're experiencing across our entire business. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to York to walk through some of the first quarter financial results. and our updated outlook in some more detail.

York?

Thanks, Aaron. Looking at first quarter 2026 results in more detail. Overall, consolidated net sales during the quarter increased 12% to $1.06 billion as compared to $942 million in the prior year first quarter. The net effect of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign currency an approximate 4% favorable impact on revenue growth during the quarter.

Residential segment total sales increased approximately 1% to $552 million as compared to $549 million in the prior year. This sales increase was primarily driven by higher portable generator shipments due to winter storm Fern in January 2026. And partially offset by a decline in energy storage system sales due to the completion of our DOE Puerto Rico program. Home standby generator sales were approximately flat versus prior year as higher pricing was offset by lower volumes due to a strong prior year period that included the benefit from a substantial 2024 hurricane season. Commercial and Industrial segment total sales increased approximately 28% to $510 million from $399 million in the prior year quarter, including an approximate 10% net favorable impact from the combination of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign currency.

Favorable FX and the Allmand, C&I mobile products acquisition contributed to this inorganic growth, partially offset by 2 small divestitures that closed during the quarter. The core total sales growth for the segment was primarily driven by revenue from products sold to global data center customers. In addition, increased shipments to our domestic industrial distributor and rental channels and higher sales of our control solutions to the global power generation market also contributed modestly to the C&I segment sales growth during the quarter. Consolidated gross profit margin was 38.7% compared to 39.5% in the prior year first quarter.

The 0.8% decrease in gross margin was primarily driven by the higher mix of C&I sales in the quarter, partially offset by favorable price/cost realization. As compared to our prior expectations, we experienced better-than-expected sales of our higher margin home standby generators following winter storm Fern. This favorable sales mix, together with strong execution and lower-than-expected input costs, supported our first quarter gross margin outperformance relative to our previous guidance. Operating expenses increased $4.6 million or 2% compared to the first quarter of 2025. The increase was primarily driven by higher intangible amortization from the Allmand acquisition.

Importantly, we were able to realize strong operating leverage on higher shipment volumes while also capitalizing on operational efficiencies by recalibrating our clean energy spending as part of our Generac Home reorganization. To that end, OpEx as a percent of sales, excluding intangible amortization expense, improved from 27.9% in Q1 of 2025 to 24.8% in Q1 of 2026. Overall adjusted EBITDA before deducting for noncontrolling interest, as defined in our earnings release, was $193 million or 18.3% of net sales in the first quarter as compared to $150 million or 15.9% of net sales in the prior year.

As just discussed, the improved operating leverage on higher sales volumes coupled with reduced residential OpEx drove the significant increase in adjusted EBITDA margins versus prior year. Importantly, this represents strong outperformance compared to our prior expectations helping to contribute to our higher full year 2026 guidance that I will discuss shortly. Adjusted EBITDA for the Residential segment was $139 million or 25.1% of total residential sales as compared to $112 million in the prior year or 20.3%. This significant margin increase versus prior year was primarily driven by favorable price realization and operational efficiencies from the reorganization of Generac Home resulting in lower operating expenses, partially offset by higher costs from tariffs and commodity prices.

Adjusted EBITDA for the Commercial and Industrial segment, before deducting for noncontrolling interest was $67 million or 13.0% of C&I total sales as compared to $45 million or 11.4% of total sales in the prior year. This margin increase was primarily driven by improved price cost realization, the favorable impact of the Allmand acquisition, and operating leverage on higher shipment volumes. Now switching back to our overall financial performance for the first quarter of 2016 on a consolidated basis. As disclosed in our earnings release, GAAP net income for the company in the quarter was $73 million as compared to $44 million in the first quarter of '25. The current year includes a modest noncash loss from the net impact of 2 small divestitures that closed during the quarter as we continue to trend the portfolio of noncore assets.

The prior year included a $10 million noncash loss to reflect the change in fair value of our Wallbox investment. GAAP income taxes during the current year first quarter were $23.6 million, or an effective tax rate of 24.4% as compared to $14.2 million or an effective tax rate of 24.3% for the prior year. Diluted net income per share for the company on a GAAP basis was $1.24 in the first quarter of 26% compared to $0.73 in the prior year. Adjusted net income for the company, as defined in our earnings release, was $106 million in the current year quarter or $1.80 per share.

This compares to adjusted net income of $75 million in the prior year or $1.26 per share. Cash flow from operations was $119 million in the current year quarter as compared to $58 million in the prior year first quarter. And free cash flow, as defined in our earnings release, was $90 million as compared to $27 million in the same quarter last year. The strong increase in free cash flow was primarily driven by higher operating earnings and a lower use of cash for working capital as compared to the prior year.

From a use of cash standpoint, we closed the Allmand acquisition in January 2026 by funding the $123 million purchase price in cash. Subsequent to March 31 quarter end, we closed the Enercon acquisition on April 1. We funded the $122 million initial purchase price with $77 million in cash and $45 million in stock. Total debt outstanding at the end of the quarter was $1.32 billion, resulting in a gross debt leverage ratio at the end of the first quarter of 1.7x on an as-reported basis, which is within our target gross debt leverage range of 1 to 2x adjusted EBITDA. With that, I will now provide further comments on our updated outlook for 2026. As disclosed in our earnings release this morning, we are raising our full year 2026 outlook for net sales and adjusted EBITDA given further momentum across certain C&I end markets, the acquisition of Enercon and our first quarter outperformance.

As a result of these factors, we now expect consolidated net sales for the full year to increase at a mid- to high teens rate as compared to the prior year, which includes an approximate 2% favorable impact from the net effect of foreign currency, acquisitions and divestitures. This net sales update compares to our previous guidance of growth in the mid-teens percent range over the prior year. This increased net sales growth expectation is driven entirely by the C&I segment with net sales for this segment now projected to increase in the mid- to high 20% range compared to 2025, an increase from our previous range of low to mid-20% growth as disclosed at our Investor Day in March.

Incremental sales from additional data center projects, higher shipments into our rental and telecom channels and the Enercon acquisition are all contributing to this updated guidance for C&I segment net sales. For the full year, significantly higher data center revenue is expected to be the main contributor to our C&I segment organic growth, while the net effect of foreign currency, the Allmand and Entercon acquisitions, and 2 small divestitures that closed in the first quarter of 2026, are anticipated to have an approximate 5% favorable impact versus prior year. Our Residential segment net sales guidance remains consistent and is still expected to increase in the 10% range compared to the prior year.

Growth in home standby generators is expected to be the primary contributor to this net sales growth during the year, in particular in the second half of 2026 and given a relatively easier prior year comparison that included a very low power outage environment. Consistent with our historical approach, this guidance assumes a level of power outage in with the longer-term baseline average for the remainder of the year and does not assume the benefit of a major power outage event during the year. From a seasonal pacing perspective, we now expect first half sales to be approximately 45% weighted and sales in the second half approximately 55% weighted, resulting in second quarter consolidated net sales growth in the approximate 9% to 10% range, driven entirely by the C&I segment.

Year-over-year net sales growth is expected to accelerate in the second half of the year, given expected continued data center strength and an easier prior year comparison for the residential segment that included very low power outage activity. Looking at our updated gross margin expectations for the full year 2026. We now expect gross margin percent to increase approximately 50 basis points from our previous expectations, resulting in full year 2026 gross margins in the 38.5% to 39.5% range. This improved gross margin outlook is driven primarily by our first quarter outperformance and and the margin accretive impact of the new Enercon acquisition.

From a seasonality perspective, we now expect gross margins to be more level loaded throughout 2026. Importantly, this updated guidance excludes the future impact of any potential tariff recovery as a result of the recent Supreme Court ruling related to EPA tariffs. Additionally, our outlook assumes that the removal of the EPA tariffs will get fully offset by a new tariff framework made up of incremental section 122, 232 and 301 tariffs. As a result, and given that the trade policy landscape remains dynamic, our assumptions around overall tariff rates remain consistent with our prior guidance. Given the factors outlined in our net sales and gross margin update, we are increasing our guidance range for adjusted EBITDA margins to 18.5% to 19.5%.

This compares to our previous guidance range of 18.0% to 19.0%. We expect second quarter adjusted EBITDA margins to increase modestly relative to second quarter 2025 levels in the 18% range before improving sequentially in the back half of the year, reaching approximately 20% in the fourth quarter of 2026. This sequential second half adjusted EBITDA margin improvement is projected to be driven primarily by stronger operating expense leverage on seasonally higher sales volumes in the second half of the year. As is our normal practice, we will also provide, we're also providing additional guidance details to assist with modeling adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow for the full year 2020. Importantly, to arrive at appropriate estimates for adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share, add back items, add back items should be reflected net of tax using our expected effective tax rate.

For full year 2026, our GAAP effective tax rate is expected to be between 24.5% to 25.0%. We now expect interest expense to be approximately $65 million for full year '26 down from $65 million to $69 million previously expected, assuming no additional term loan principal prepayments during the year. Lower borrowings during the year are the primary driver for this reduction in interest expense guidance. Our capital expenditures are still projected to be approximately 3.5% of our forecasted net sales for the year, slightly elevated from historical levels as we continue to invest in incremental capacity and execute other projects to support future growth expectations, particularly for C&I data center products.

Depreciation expense is now forecast to be approximately $108 million to $112 million in 2026, an increase from $104 million to $108 million previously expected, primarily due to slightly higher CapEx guidance and recently closed acquisitions. GAAP intangible amortization expenses in 2026 is now expected to be approximately $112 million to $116 million during the year, up from $108 million to $112 million previously expected primarily due to updated assumptions around recently closed acquisitions. Stock compensation expense is still expected to be between $54 million to $58 million for the year.

Consistent with prior guidance, operating and free cash flow generation is expected to be weighted toward the second half of the year in 2026, resulting in projected free cash flow generation of approximately $350 million for the full year 2026. Our full year weighted average diluted share count is still expected to be between 59.5 million and 60 million shares in 2026. And finally, this 2026 outlook does not reflect potential additional acquisitions, divestitures or share repurchases that could drive incremental shareholder value during the year. This concludes our prepared remarks. At this time, we'd like to open up the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Tommy Moll with Stephens.

Aaron, you referenced the $600 million nonbonding notice to proceed, which was also discussed at the Investor Day. I'm just curious if you can share anything about how the product testing and pilots are going there. And then related, the accompanying service capabilities don't get a ton of air time. but you did mention it at the Investor Day. And I'm just curious, is that also potentially a gating factor here?

Do you need to staff up a lot with Generac folks to enable those capabilities.

Yes. Thanks, Tommy. So yes, the notice to proceed that we talked about at Investor Day and we mentioned again this morning, that's from one of the hyperscale customers that we continue to negotiate with and I would -- maybe the best way to characterize it, Tommy, is if this was a 100-yard dash. We're like 99 yards of the way done with the race.

We've got one yard left. We're in the final stages with the final agreement. There's a process, it's a gauntlet. I mean, there's literally a hurdle for every step along the way here.

But all of the everything from product quality to supply chain visits, our factory visits, the audits that they put us through internal and external. We continue to march through the process and we're passing all of those gates as we go. And we really are at the very last yard of this race, this 100-yard race. So we feel really good about it.

And as such, we're into -- we mentioned this in the prepared remarks, we're into discussions about the specifics around certain sites, which sites would we see next year as part of that MTP, the notice to proceed, and we're preparing accordingly. On that point, maybe transition to the second part of your question was service. This is obviously an area that as we deploy equipment to these large project areas, we need to make sure we're appropriately staffed. I think one of the great things about our industrial distribution network is over the last 5 or 6 years, we've been in -- we've talked about the investments we've made there.

Some of those investments have come in the form of acquisitions. And today, we own about 30% to 35% of of our industrial distribution network here in the U.S. And we continue to work with our partners on staffing to appropriate levels. to serve the market. I mean, obviously, the ability to react to any kind of service situation is critical.

And again, I think we're -- we feel like we're in a really good spot there. given our own ownership and our appetite to continue to invest and hire people as needed as the sites get deployed.

Our next question comes from the line of George Gianarikas with CGF.

As you look to scale hyperscale demand, I mean, how are you derisking your engine supply chain. And what sort of multiyear capacity guarantees have you secured? And maybe more specifically, any exclusivity frameworks you have to ensure that the supply remains an advantage to Generac?

Yes. Thanks, George. Obviously, an important question in this whole effort around data centers is supply chain based, right? And it's not just the engine, although the engine, of course, is is critical, but it's alternator supply, it's cooling package supply.

It's the end packaging of the product, which we're -- with our Enercon acquisition that we closed on April 1, we're taking a big step forward there trying to solve for what is becoming a fast becoming a bottleneck in the industry around finished packaging. Even if we can get great lead times on the unpackaged product, it doesn't help us if the packaging phase is constrained. So that was a big part of the thesis, our calculus in acquiring Enercon, and we look to expand that operation as well pretty aggressively here so that we can control those lead times. With respect to engines, maybe directly to your question there, we have a multiyear agreement in place with our current engine supplier, our large diesel engine supplier.

That agreement allows us to have exclusivity. Here in the U.S., there are a couple of small exceptions to some legacy customers there, but nothing that I would say any of those small customers are going to be able to get through the gauntlet, at least with hyperscale customers, we don't foresee that at all. Engine supply, we feel really good about our engine suppliers capacity and their ability to not only produce at the kind of scale that is going to be needed with the volumes that we're talking about with these hyperscale customers and non-hyperscale customers, but also their appetite to continue to invest and the footprint that they have, the global footprint they have and the ability to expand that footprint as needed.

So we're talking to this -- the engine partner about potential production of these engines right here in the U.S. at this point. So it might even be something cohabitated with us on some kind of joint investment. We're not exactly sure at this stage. Right now, there's plenty of capacity in place.

So we feel really good about that. And we're really working to solve kind of the next level of capacity constraints in supply chain around alternators, cooling packages. We're multi-sourcing those critical components as well. And we feel like the supply chain for those other critical components, if they don't already have the capacity added, they have really good plans to add it as we enter 2027 and beyond.

So at this stage of the game, we feel like we're in pretty good shape. But it's -- supply chain is something that's not 100% inside of our control. So obviously, that's something we have to keep a close eye on. I'm very pleased, though, with our team's engagement there.

It's an area of strength for Generac historically, just working with supply chain, developing deep partnerships focusing on capacity adds where needed and getting ahead of it. We don't wait to react. We try to be proactive. And so I feel like those -- we're covering those bases as well as we can today.

And we're basically kind of coiling the spring here as we get ready to get into the fourth quarter, back half of this year and really into 2027 really driving to the next level with the data center products.

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Halloran with Baird.

So on the non-data center side of the C&I piece, maybe just talk us to what you're seeing from a sequential and then how the rest of the year should play out on the kind of core rental telecom and then traditional C&I type categories. And then related layer in how the new product categories from a power range that you're bringing to bear, how those are early receptivity of those products into those markets?

Yes. Thanks, Mike. Yes, the balance of our -- the amazing thing is the balance of our C&I business is also -- it's -- as we indicated, over the last couple of quarters, we were starting to see signs of nice recovery or growth in telecom as an example, which really began in kind of in earnest in the fourth quarter of last year and has continued to pick up steam here in early 2026, really kind of outpacing expectations on order volume giving us good confidence as part of the guidance raise here for the balance of 2026 and the C&I segment is coming from telecom. The other area is rental.

It's interesting, I kind of had an epiphany, it's probably not in the [ Pifany,] it's probably too strong I'm overstating. But driving by one of these data center construction sites, there's actually one going up right next door to our Beaver Dam, our new Beaver Dam manufacturing plant. And when I was kind of taking a drive through that last year, and it's right next door, I was struck by just how much of our mobile equipment and the type of equipment that we build is on that site in light towers, mobile generators, for temporary power, temporary lighting and temporary heat even in the cold Wisconsin winters to keep construction going and construction does go, it goes 24/7 on these sites.

And so it's really no surprise that what we're seeing and hearing from our rental customers, starting with our national rental customers is that the refleeting cycle really has begun. And we've been waiting on it to begin about 18 months here. It's been -- we've kind of been on the backside of that, and it's starting to kick up. And fortuitously, we had been negotiating for the Allmand acquisition and we closed that deal on January 1 as we announced, and it's just the timing couldn't have been better.

We've seen just a really nice response there. That business has outperformed on top line and bottom line. And the combination of that business, our business historically was focused on national rental account customers, which typically have a little bit lower gross margin profile because they're buying in bulk, whereas the almond business was really focused on the independent rental channel, so it was a great complementary fit for us from a distribution standpoint, and it also gave us some much needed capacity. They have a nice big factory in Nebraska.

And so the combination of our factory here in Wisconsin and that factory in Nebraska give us some great capacity for serving what is a growing market. Our core C&I business, the industrial distributor business has been good. Our quote rates remain pretty strong. I would tell you, I'll remind you that as we've talked over the last really 4 or 5 quarters, we've been working down our backlog there and shortening up our lead times, and we've kind of caught those now, continue to grow, albeit not at the same rate we were growing previously for those core markets.

And then I think maybe the last point of your question, Mike, was around these larger machines kind of taking those to market through our traditional channels, that's been very well received. The sales cycles are very long, especially in the traditional market. So we've only started to realize the first couple of orders coming through the pipeline here. But just this week, we had an engineering symposium conference in [indiscernible] with over 200 -- I think it was like 220 engineering firms represented and it's an opportunity for us to talk about the expanded product line.

One of the shortcomings of Generac historically in the C&I markets, has been our product line stopped at 2 megawatts. So now having a product line that goes to 3.2, 3.25 megawatt and then we've got an expansion of that even further to 4-megawatt on the drawing board makes us a full-line provider and it really takes away any final excuses that specifying engineering firms may have had not to specify us by name, either because they were concerned that they couldn't just it have to put us on certain specs and not on all specs because we didn't have a full product range, that's been completely eliminated now.

So really good receptivity there, and we're expecting big things out of that product range in our traditional markets in the years ahead.

Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

This is David Tarantino on for Jeff. Maybe switching to residential. Could you give us some color on the strength in margins here? It sounds like there was some favorable mix here. But could you parse out anything unique to this quarter? And maybe how sustainable this level of margin is moving forward?

Yes. Maybe I'll start and then maybe York can chime in, too. The margin improvement there was pretty dramatic. It was 500 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion over the prior year.

And a combination of 2 things. I mean, it was primarily driven, as we said in the prepared remarks, though, by just better cost control, I would say, as we have brought together our teams there under the Generac Home the on residential, on home business that we've referred to. It's really helped us leverage our team members more efficiently across that business. We built a world-class team in our Energy Technology business.

And look, the market has shifted, right? It's -- it's moved based on policy, based on continued high -- persistently high interest rates and some other things that have been presented headwinds to that market. We believe that, that long term is still a good business opportunity as retail energy prices continue to rise. I mean there's no question that self-generation, self-storage, that cost containment for homeowners and businesses around electricity rates in particular, is that's going to become a headline story here.

It's already moving into the headlines. So we like that business. But the reality of it is it's softer right now because of where the market's at. And so being able to leverage that team, this world-class team that we've built and moved that into our traditional residential business or what we refer to as consumer power around portable generators and home standby.

It's been a great move. We've been able to get a lot out of that team -- we've been able to get some early wins here on cost containment. That's really the primary driver for a big chunk of that improvement in EBITDA margin, and you should expect to see that going forward, Dave. We also had some gross margin improvement there as well.

And maybe I'll let York just maybe chime in a little bit around that.

Yes. No, like you said, probably about 3% of that 5% improvement was the OpEx side that Aaron just talked about, the remainder is the gross margin improvement that we saw with residential. We still continue -- will -- we did -- our home standby shipments. We did see strong demand following winter storm Fern, a little bit of favorable mix there relative to prior year, but we still are seeing positive price cost here in the quarter for the residential segment.

If you recall, so we rolled out pricing probably in more Q2 of last year as a result of higher input costs and tariffs. And then as we rolled out our next-gen home standby in the second half of last year, -- we -- with the added features to that product offering, we did roll out additional price with that new product offering as well. So the combination of the higher input costs and the rollout of the new model allowed us to roll out additional price. And we saw that reading through here probably more than the cost is coming up.

So still favorable price cost on the residential side that we're pleased with.

Our next question will come from the line of Brian Drab with William Blair.

I just wanted to ask about the standby business at the moment. I think I gathered that you said it was flat in the first quarter. And then I heard a comment that the second quarter growth would be driven entirely by C&I, but I think you're still modeling for the year. I don't know if you restated it today, but you're thinking like mid-teens growth for the standby business for the full year in '26. Is there a significant ramp in the second half that you're expecting?

I know there's easy comps with the weather. But can you just talk about if there is a ramp and what drives that?

I guess, things, sorry, Aaron, I'll start and then you can maybe follow, but the Winterstorm firm Fern did help some of the residential side in Q1, we're not modeling any -- I guess, we're just modeling baseline weather for Q2. But yes, normal seasonality would have the second half sequentially increasing first half, second half. That's just normal seasonality. And then when you're looking at year-over-year growth in the second half, there should be -- you should see significant home standby growth because we just didn't have a season in '25, second half '25. So basically, the 15% home standby growth that you're referring to or overall 10% for the residential segment will come in the second half for the most part.

And a good chunk of that is there's price as well, but half the growth in 2026, Brian, is price. With the new product line we introduced the higher price there. So that's part of the equation. But as York said, that return to base that assumption that we returned to baseline normal outage kind of long-term outage environment is a big assumption for the second half.

But we start off the year well. Winter storm Fern was a nice kick. We had a lot of -- we saw a lot of interest in terms of sales leads in Q1. We'll see what conversion looks like here as we get into Q2. It's kind of the first real test for us of our new pool our lead pool system. So we're modeling Q2 off of our historical close rates when we get an influx like that.

So we'll see if that holds or if it's better, maybe it will be better. We're not sure yet at this point. We've got to watch the read through. But it's a good start to the year.

And as York said, we feel like with the easy comps in the back half, that we're going to see growth. We see really nice growth in the second half with Home Standby particular.

Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Gengaro with Stifel.

Two kind of connected topics for me. The first is, how should we -- and I know you kind of gave the full year guide for the company. How should we think about sort of the C&I margin progression, given obviously the strong growth that we're seeing. And maybe attached to that.

I know it's early, but based on what you're seeing in order fall and you talked about the nonbinding notice, do you think growth rates in that business can remain in the teens plus into '27?

Yes, thanks, Stephen. Maybe I'll take the first -- or the second part of the question I let York kind of tackle the margin progression because there's some there's a lot of moving pieces in that, but a lot of that is coming from leverage that we're going to get on the OpEx line. But in terms of the -- just the growth rates there, obviously, we put some aggressive targets out there and long-term growth rates at the Investor Day, but -- and the growth rates here near term are even better just given the the incremental nature, right, like we're going from almost from 0 to the kind of the $700-plus million backlog that we've talked about, right, in converting that backlog over the course of this year and next, in particular, and then the hyperscale opportunities that haven't been reflected in that backlog.

And the notice to proceed of $600 million is a good representation I think, of the kind of volumes that are -- the potential that's there in terms of growth rates. I think the answer to your question, Stephen, though, is somewhat highly linked though to the CapEx spending assumptions for for data center buildout. And so it really depends on where you kind of land on the spectrum here. And I will say this, and I think it's easy -- and you got to be really careful in situations like this because it's easy to talk yourself into all kinds of things.

But every single conversation we have, and it's up and down the line, it's not just the data center customers themselves, but it's the developers, the other component suppliers that are feeding this. Obviously, here in Wisconsin, we have the benefit of having a few other companies that are also feeding the data center market with products as OEMs and so just kind of comparing notes, right, just sharing notes. It's -- I think most, if not all, of these, I guess, forecast -- this is going to be more than a multiyear run. And the kind of impact that AI is going to have on businesses and on kind of society at large, I think we're just at the very early innings of that and starting to see some of the power of this and what it can do.

And as that takes root, the need for data center capacity is just going to be -- is just going to grow. And so we feel really good about our longer-term growth rates. And then maybe I'll kick it to York just on the margin progression. If there are any comments there, York you want to make.

Yes. Just to follow up on the growth rate. So if you recall in our Investor Day back in March, we did have guide a 3-year CAGR for our C&I segment of low to mid-20% range. I think obviously, we've got some visibility to the 2027 numbers with that notice to proceed that Aaron talked about as well as the backlog that we -- the $700 million of backlog that we have that will spill some of that will spill into -- so we have at least clear visibility there and we're feeling good about the growth rate.

The margin progression, you're obviously seeing it here in Q1. You're starting to see that. A couple of comments there is the Enercon acquisition, which really starts April 1, that's when that closed. That should actually -- with the vertical integration and the margin profile of that and getting the margin stack of that business on top of the margin -- the data center margins that we were guiding previously, that's actually going to give us about a 50 basis point lift to our -- to the C&I segment. EBITDA margins or gross margins.

So that's good. And then again, as you grow low to mid-20% CAGR over the next 3 years, you start really leveraging the OpEx infrastructure that we're building to support the data center initiative and you should start seeing more mid- to high-teens EBITDA margins in the out years in that 2028 when you get out into 2028. So continued margin margin growth for C&I is expected as you grow dramatically on the top line.

Our next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish with Wells Fargo.

So the release in there, it references a potential multiyear hyperscale agreement. Is that referring to the same customer behind the $600 million notice to proceed that was discussed at the Investor Day, potentially extending that order. Are you signaling a separate hyperscale hyperscaler opportunity, just trying to get some more detail on the opportunity set? And then just very quickly, can you confirm whether you've included the impact of the new Section 232 rules on steel in the guidance?

Yes. I'll take the first part of your question, and then I'll let York tackle the tariff assumptions. Yes, Praneeth, we're really -- we're in conversation with 2 hyperscale customers in particular. And both would be -- we would assume would present multiyear opportunities for us.

The agreements themselves, there's kind of a master supply agreement. And then once you get past that, you're officially added to the approved vendor list and then they can cut POs. So -- and each customer has a different approach to that in terms of giving you a forecast. And then those POs that would be with that.

But because the planning cycles are so long on these projects, and because lead times have been stretched in our industry anyway, our lead times may be shorter, but industry lead times are longer. Many of the planning cycles they're already looking at, in some cases, 2028, and beyond because the traditional supply base for these backup systems are constrained. And so the visibility we have -- right now, it's limited to 2027. We hope that, that -- we'll get better visibility to that as we kind of get through this final stage of negotiations with these 2 customers. The customer that we are working with that we've got the notice to proceed with is the customer that were closest to the finish line.

But I would say the other customer is close behind. There's just a few more steps there that we have to work through. But both of them and the volume numbers that they've kind of talked to us about in preparing us for being able to be a supplier they're significant. And I think we're already turning our attention to what do we think about for the next leg of capacity growth because we're trying to accelerate our Sussex facility ramp here into Q3. We originally slated it as Q4, trying to pull that in, so that we've got an opportunity to maybe even do some of this in the fourth quarter.

But we're going to need it's the old jaws phrase, we're going to need to be -- build a bigger boat. If we need a bigger boat if we're going to win both of these accounts because that's not in our our current capacity capability today, we would definitely have to add more. So -- and then I'll kick it to York on the tariff question.

Yes. On the 232, obviously, with the EPA reciprocal tariffs getting overruled by the Supreme Court that would be a savings to us. But with the Section 122 at least temporarily in place. And then to your question, the 232 steel aluminum tariffs, the way we've modeled it is that we're assuming that that just offsets any EPA tariff savings.

So it's not going to be detrimental to our run rate margins. Currently, as they're stated today, there's some benefit, but there's some uncertainty as to sort of what 232 tariffs will be in the second half, with 301 tariffs will be in the second half. So we've just assumed that in the outlook that we've presented today that we're just being consistent with the tariff rates from our previous guidance. So not any worse, not any better, which probably is a conservative view here.

Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Glynn with Oppenheimer & Co.

Just wanted to go back to the residential margin upside. Curious clearly sounds like it came in ahead of your expectations wonder if that was the speed of the unification benefits or kind of the scope of the cost structure opportunity? It sounds like maybe those 3 percentage points OpEx maybe a way point and a point in time that you continue to build off of. And really just kind of trying to tie into the 50 basis points boost to the EBITDA margin guidance.

It seems like what you delivered in the first quarter. Residential EBITDA margins is really considered pretty modestly in the full year guide, especially since first quarter is the seasonal mix low for residential.

Yes. I mean I can I can start with that. Yes, so if you look -- if you factor in what do we factor in the updated margin guide, the extra 50 basis point improvement in gross margins. You're right, it's the outperformance in Q1. And then the margin accretion from the Enercon acquisition that I mentioned that will help impact improved margins for Industrial.

We, for the most part, are holding everything else again, that tariff assumption that I just gave on the previous question. Obviously, the mix elements there, we've taken up with taking up C&I, you'd expect actually expect it to mix down, but there's a little bit of improvement that we've baked in to offset that. So we're basically holding Q2, Q3, Q4, outside of our margin profile, outside of those other the Q1 beat and the Enercon acquisition.

Yes. And then maybe on the residential OpEx, Chris, just to put a finer point on that. I mean there's some really good things going on there. I mean unification has happened quickly.

That was a process we began evaluating last year and really accelerated the combination as we got in here into 2026. And so there's clearly -- that is having an impact. I would also say we're on the backside of some of those new product introductions with the Power Micro, now getting into market ramping there. And then Power cell to also in the market. So some of the the hard core development work being done last year on those projects is tapering.

And then on the software side, like everybody else, we are benefiting from the trends in coding around AI and just not needing the intensity of head count there to produce productivity is up dramatically. And that's certainly helpful. So I mean it's a combination of those areas that is helpful. And I think also as you look forward, kind of the other part of your question, I think it's a good jumping off point as we go into 2026 here.

We do typically have expenses start to ramp as the season. When you go back to our core business around HSB, home standby and portables, There'll be some marketing ramp and whatnot as we -- as you would normally expect seasonally here. So the raw quantum of dollars will increase, but so does the top line as we've laid it out into the second half of the year. So we feel really good about this, though.

I think the Generac 1 Home project. I'm not ready to call it a complete success at this point. I mean, there's still a lot of things we're working through to bring those teams together. But we like what we see so far, and we're getting a lot of leverage out of that combined entity.

Our next question will come from the line of [ Julian Dominsmith ] with Jefferies.

This is Tanner James on for Julian. Maybe just a question on what you're seeing for pricing momentum for large diesel gen sets. You spoke to the lead time advantage relative to competitors. You're talking about additional capacity growth and investment. Just prospectively, how should we think about the sequential pricing ex tariffs here into the 27, 28, 29 time frame?

Yes. Thanks, Tanner. It's a great question. And I'll preface my response by saying, when we laid out our original business case to go into the large megawatt gen set market, historical pricing levels, the ASPs of those machines were lower because we put our business case together in a much less constrained with a much less constrained backdrop of supply.

And so as that's changed, and as you would expect, we've seen pricing improve. And that has improved the overall business case for those products. Even with data center customers who buy in large quantities where you would typically assume you'd have margin pressure. And the margins are lower kind of net -- on a net basis, relative to selling a similar machine into more of our legacy traditional market, but they're not dramatically lower.

And they're dramatically better than historical margins in the product segment would have been. So we feel good about that. Speaking to the forward ASPs, I think everything that we look at today is that lead times are going to remain constrained for the next several years. And a lot of that is underpinned by continued engine supply constraints.

So with our competitive set, they are adding capacity. They've announced those projects and those plans, but it's going to take time to get that online. I do think over time, that probably will find its baseline and normalize -- but at this stage of the game, we feel like there are also opportunities to increase our vertical integration and efficiencies. Again, back to the Enercon acquisition, a part of our calculus there is the opportunity to capture that value with the machine and the math is very good there.

As you can imagine, it's not only the ASPs on the gen sets themselves, the bar gensets that have increased, but also the packaged ASPs have increased. And so the opportunity to capture some of that value and bring that through in our gross margins there. is very strong. And so we'll look at other areas as well. And I think as we improve our efficiency and we leverage our footprint here, we think there's probably some other opportunities there to to continue to improve margin on a go-forward basis, but that may be offset by ASP kind of normalizing or even coming down slightly, but we think those gross margins are going to hang in there for the foreseeable future.

Our next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri with Citi.

I have 2 questions, one on C&I and one on residential quick ones. Are you hearing air quality permits for diesel generators as a sort of like a gating factor or a reason for delay in final orders. You talked about potential for next leg of capacity growth, where do you see sort of like the gating factors in capacity growth? You've acquired Enercon, -- so that part is said, would it require any more M&A to expand capacity beyond what you have?

And then on residential, you're seeing multiple benefits from at home and expense recalibration I was wondering if you've accelerated the ET energy transition breakeven time line at all, any update on that?

Yes. Thanks, Vic. Yes. So the C&I question -- in terms of -- I think the question was diesel on permitting, air permitting around some of these bigger projects and I think all permitting, whether you're talking air or water or other things that's become more challenging as communities grapple with the impacts that data centers may have on air, on water, on energy, there are solutions there with respect specifically to diesel backup generators, the option of using a Tier 4 certified solution.

There are after-treatment packages that can be added to those projects to further improve the emissions profile -- and in particular, there are some markets where that's required kind of best commercial best available technologies are required either because of the concentration of data centers in a particular market or just concerns around diesel particulate and emissions. So -- but again, there are -- we have projects that we're involved with, where we're discussing site certifications that would include aftertreatment and/or Tier 4 certified product. So there are ways around that. I don't -- we don't see that being -- that's not a showstopper put it that way.

That's something that we can solve for. On the capacity question with C&I, that question -- as we look at the future here, we're already looking for ways to expand capacity. As I said before, we've got to be forward thinking here. And we've got to be thinking not about $1 billion in capacity.

But $2 billion or $3 billion in capacity. What does that look like? How do we achieve that? Can we get more out of our existing footprint, the footprint inclusive of Sussex, inclusive of what we've acquired with Enercon, but beyond that, we're also looking at other facilities.

And where would we cite those facilities? Do we have time to do a greenfield? Do we not? We can buy existing real estate?

Can you buy existing companies? To your point, could some of that be solved through M&A. And so we're looking at all those things. Everything is on the table.

And I think you will hear from us about those capacity adds as we go forward here and in particular, as we get through these negotiations with these hyperscalers and it becomes more real, we definitely have to take action. So you should see that coming. The residential question, again, I think as you reiterated the One Home project has gone well. We still love energy technology.

We just -- the technologies themselves and where we're at in the cycle there, we've got a very competitive microinverter that's in market today, and we're starting to scale. So we're moving from our initial production tooling, which was more of an approved outline. Moving it to a scale line, that's here domestically. We're getting on ABLs for more customers there.

We're starting to dabble with some prepaid lease products, so that we can take away additional constraints there. And the market is changing too rapidly. As you know, there's a lot going on here in terms of consolidation of distribution. There's changes in terms of focus with other OEMs that supply either inverter products or batteries into the market.

Some of those pivots are the necessity of the current environment. But longer term, look, this is simple math. If electricity retail electricity prices continue to rise. And things like storage costs and electronics costs continue to come down, we're going to see strong demand for these products in the long run is clearly going to be a bumpy 2026 and into 2027, probably for these products in terms of market demand.

But we feel we're very well positioned. And when we put that together with our home ecosystem that we're building out, which is differentiated, we feel like we're in a really good position there to capture opportunities and it's a unique market. I think it helps round out our residential segment quite well, and we're very excited about the future. We just have to get through this kind of air pocket in -- at least as it relates to energy technology here in the market over the next, I would say, next year, 1.5 years.

And the breakeven time line remains intact for 2027.

Absolutely. Have not moved on that.

Our next question comes from the line of Keith Housum with Northcoast Research.

Just in terms of the telecom and the national rental trajectory for both of those companies. It appears, obviously, they're both on the upper swing here. Can you just remind us, are these more refresh opportunities or growth within these markets? And then traditionally, when you guys have had an upward cycle, how long do these cycles generally last?

Yes. Thanks, Keith. Great question. I'll talk to telecom first.

Telecom cycles usually go, they're multiyear. And actually, that cycle it tends to follow kind of project build-out. So a lot of it is new build of sites. There is retrofitting of existing sites still available as part of the opportunity with telecom.

And this is mostly what's referred to in the industry as outside plant back up. So it's the towers that you'd see along highways, hillsides, things like that or -- and a lot of that is still around the 5G build-out that continues for many of the carriers we're the primary supplier to all the Tier 1 wireless carriers and have been for decades. We customize product for them. We have great response rates from a service standpoint.

We're able to work with their engineering and operations teams to create bespoke solutions and then build those at scale. In all honesty, it's a lot like what these hyperscale opportunities are on the data center side, in terms of working with engineering teams and operations teams for bespoke solutions and then turning that into product at scale and then being able to provide the service and support to surround it. It's just obviously a lot bigger factor, form factor and a lot bigger dollars. But telecom is usually a multiyear run.

We feel really good about that going forward, a lot of new build there. And then on the mobile side, that's a refleeting cycle, there is some new -- it's new equipment, but the cycle is they'll buy for a couple of years, and then they'll not buy for a year or 2 as they let the equipment kind of age out, they watch very closely their utilization rates, their rental rates, and then they watch the residual equipment value rates as well. And it's kind of -- it's basically math. A lot of the equipment companies -- the rental equipment companies have become very sophisticated in terms of the math that they run and the metrics that they watch.

And so they kind of know when they need to kind of hit the gas on spending CapEx to re-fleet so that it's available for the market and where it's supported, obviously, by the metrics that they needed to be supported by. And those typically, those runs can be usually, again, a year or 2 on and generally maybe a year, 18 months off. That's kind of what we saw here in the latest run -- there can be other cycle factors there. I'd just point this out.

In the past, we've seen energy cycles as domestic energy production increases that can increase the intensity of the rental market cycle. And we -- I think we're seeing a little bit of that right now. We'll see where that goes here over the next couple of quarters. But everything we're hearing is a lot of the refleeting cycle right now is just the age out of some of the equipment they've had in their fleets.

And then obviously, demand is continuing to be pretty strong. Again, you can built around data center construction activity and other activity in the domestic energy production sector.

And I'm showing no further questions at this time. And I would like to hand the conference back over to Chris Rosman for closing remarks.

We want to thank everyone for joining us this morning. We look forward to discussing our second quarter earnings results in late July. Thank you again, and goodbye.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.