Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning. My name is [ Kath ], and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the ITW's First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Erin Linnihan, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, [ Kath ]. Good morning, and welcome to ITW's First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. I'm joined by our President and CEO, Chris O'Herlihy; and Senior Vice President and CFO, Michael Larsen. During today's call, we will discuss ITW's first quarter 2026 financial results and provide an update on our outlook for full year 2026. Slide 2 is a reminder that this presentation contains forward-looking statements.

Please refer to the company's 2025 Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the SEC for more detail about important risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. This presentation uses certain non-GAAP measures, and a reconciliation of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is contained in the press release. Please turn to Slide 3, and it's now my pleasure to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Chris O'Herlihy. Chris?

Thank you, Erin, and good morning, everyone. As you saw in our press release this morning, ITW delivered a solid start to the year with results that were in line with our expectations. In the first quarter, we continued to outperform our underlying end markets, delivering revenue growth of 5% and a 12% increase in GAAP EPS to $2.66. Through disciplined operational execution, we expanded operating margin by 60 basis points to 25.4%. We continue to capitalize on positive demand trends in our CapEx-related segments with organic growth in Welding up 6% and Test & Measurement and Electronics up 5%.

While our consumer-facing businesses contended with challenging end market dynamics, the ITW team executed at a high level on the profit drivers within our control. Our enterprise initiatives contributed 120 basis points to the bottom line, driving that 60 basis point overall margin improvement. We were equally encouraged by our continued progress on ITW's organic growth agenda, specifically on customer-back innovation, or CBI, as we call it. We are positioning the company to consistently deliver 3% plus CBI contribution to revenue by 2030. As we've noted before, this is the key driver of our ability to consistently deliver 4% plus high-quality organic growth at the enterprise level.

As we look ahead and based on our solid Q1 results, we are raising our full year GAAP EPS guidance by $0.10. Our new guidance midpoint of $11.30 incorporates a slightly lower tax rate and represents 8% year-over-year growth. Our full year organic growth projection of 1% to 3% remains unchanged, reflecting current demand levels adjusted for seasonality. For the full year, we expect operating margin expansion of approximately 100 basis points, powered by our enterprise initiatives. Notably, all 7 segments are projected to deliver positive organic growth and margin expansion in 2026. As we've said before, ITW's unique business model, resilient portfolio and do what we say execution demonstrated daily by our colleagues worldwide ensure we are well positioned to deliver robust financial performance in any environment and remain invested in our long-term strategy through any business cycle.

As order activity continues to strengthen across several of our end markets, our production capacity, new product pipeline and best-in-class customer-facing metrics position us to take market share and fully capitalize on these positive demand trends that we are now beginning to see. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Michael to provide more detail on the quarter and our guidance for 2026. Michael?

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. In Q1, the ITW team delivered a solid operational and financial start to the year. Starting with the top line, revenue growth was 4.6%, driven by organic growth of 0.4%, a 3.9% contribution from foreign currency translation and 0.3% from an acquisition. As Chris said, we were particularly encouraged by positive demand trends and strong order activity in our CapEx and semi-related segments.

The combination of our product line simplification, PLS efforts and delayed sales to the Middle East reduced our organic growth rate by approximately 1 percentage point. For context, our annual sales to the Middle East represent approximately $100 million, which is less than 1% of ITW's total annual sales. On the bottom line, operating margin improved by 60 basis points to 25.4%, with Enterprise Initiatives contributing 120 basis points. Incremental margins were approximately 40% in the quarter, and we expect both operating margin and incremental margins to move higher as the year progresses.

Free cash flow grew 6% with a 69% conversion rate, reflecting typical first quarter seasonality. We also repurchased $375 million of shares during the quarter. Overall, a solid start to the year with revenue growth of 5%, earnings growth of 12% and some encouraging demand trends that bode well for the balance of the year. Please turn to Slide 4 for a brief update on our enterprise initiatives.

Since 2012, our strong execution on the enterprise initiatives have been the most impactful driver of margin improvement at ITW. The 120 basis points contribution this quarter from our strategic sourcing and 80/20 front-to-back activities was in line with our expectations, and we remain on track for a full year impact of approximately 100 basis points, independent of volume. Looking ahead, we expect these initiatives to continue to drive meaningful gains through 2030 as we track toward our 30% margin goal. Now let's move to the segment highlights, starting with automotive OEM, where revenue increased 4%.

While organic revenue declined 1%, we outperformed global automotive builds, which were down more than 3%. On a regional basis, North America was down 5% while Europe was flat. China declined 3%, but significantly outperformed automotive builds, which were down 10%. Builds in China are projected to meaningfully improve sequentially in the second quarter, including double-digit growth in EVs, where we are particularly well positioned.

At the segment level, we continue to expect our typical 200 to 300 basis points of outperformance versus builds that are now expected to be down approximately 2% for the full year. Operating margin improved by 170 basis points to 21%. Turning to Slide 5. Food Equipment delivered revenue growth of 2%, with organic revenue down 3%. Strength in service, which grew 3%, partially offset a 6% decline in equipment.

North America was down 5%. A slower start than expected on the institutional side, particularly in the education end market was partially offset by growth in restaurants, including QSR, which was up double digits and service, which grew more than 4%. Encouragingly, since January, we have seen gradual improvement in institutional demand trends. And at the Food Equipment segment level, we continue to expect positive organic growth and margin improvement for the full year.

The International business was flat and is projected to deliver positive organic growth starting in Q2. Test & Measurement and Electronics had a standout quarter with 10% revenue growth and 5% organic growth, the highest growth rate in 3 years as the green shoots we talked about last quarter begin to look more like a sustainable recovery. Through this recent down cycle, our divisions stayed invested in their long-term growth strategies, including capacity and new products, and they are uniquely positioned to meet growing customer demand and fully capitalize on the growth opportunities in front of them.

As a result, electronics grew 10% this quarter and the semi-related businesses, which represent about $500 million of annual revenues or about 15% of the segment grew more than 15%. Looking ahead, market indicators like increasing fab utilization, encouraging customer signals and response to new products as well as strong order activity all support the view that the positive demand trends that we're seeing in this segment today are sustainable in the near term. Moving on to Slide 6. Welding delivered another strong top line performance as revenue grew 7% with organic growth of 6%. Equipment grew 8% with a strong contribution from new products.

North America was the primary growth engine, up 8% with mid-single-digit growth in filler metals. The growth was broad-based with mid- to high single-digit growth across our businesses, including in both industrial and commercial. International was down 6% due to a difficult comparison of plus 14% in the year ago quarter. Operating margin was best-in-class at 32.1%.

Polymers & Fluids delivered 5% revenue growth and organic growth of 2%, driven by new products and robust market share gains, primarily in automotive aftermarket, which grew 3%. Polymers was flat against a tough comparison of plus 6% and Fluids was also flat. Operating margin expanded 150 basis points to 28%. Turning to Slide 7. In Construction Products, revenue was up 3% and encouragingly, this quarter marked the best organic growth performance in 4 years.

Overall, organic growth declined 1%. North America was flat as our residential and renovation business delivered positive organic growth of 1%. In this segment, we remain well positioned for the inevitable housing recovery down the road. Europe was down 3% and Australia and New Zealand was down 2%.

Specialty Products revenue was down 1% with organic revenue down 5% due to the impact of PLS activities and delayed Middle East sales. Despite the top line pressure and with the margin tailwind from recent PLS activities, the segment expanded operating margin by 40 basis points to 31.3%. With that, let's turn to Slide 8 for an update on our guidance. As we've said before, ITW is well positioned to deliver meaningful progress on both the top and bottom lines in 2026. On the top line, we are maintaining our total revenue growth projection of 2% to 4% and organic growth projection of 1% to 3% Per our usual process, this is based on current levels of demand adjusted for typical seasonality and prevailing foreign exchange rates.

On the bottom line, we continue to expect operating margin to improve by approximately 100 basis points to a range of 26.5% to 27.5% as enterprise initiatives contribute approximately 100 basis points. We continue to expect that price/cost will be modestly accretive to margins after factoring in recent tariff changes and all known material cost increases, offset by corresponding pricing and supply chain actions. Our projection for incremental margins in the mid- to high 40s remain unchanged. Incorporating our first quarter results and the lower effective tax rate projection for the year of 23% to 24%, we are raising our GAAP EPS guidance by $0.10 to a new range of $11.10 to $11.50, representing 8% growth at the $11.30 midpoint.

In terms of cadence, we are projecting a 48-52 EPS split between the first and second half of the year, which is less back-end loaded than 2025 and our previous guidance. Finally, we expect free cash flow conversion to exceed 100% of net income, and we are on track to repurchase approximately $1.5 billion of our shares in 2026. In summary, we're heading into the balance of the year with positive momentum on both the top and bottom line. All 7 segments are projecting positive organic growth and further improvement in their industry-leading margins. Overall, ITW is well positioned to deliver on our guidance, including solid organic growth with best-in-class margins and returns.

And with that, Erin, I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you, Michael. [ Kath ], will you please open the line and inform callers on how to get back into the queue.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup.

So I know it's early in the year, but when you think about growth in the segments, is it fair to say that your CapEx businesses such as Test & Measurement and Welding are trending ahead of your expectations, but maybe consumer specialty, I guess, and Food Equipment was more institutional or a little below and they just kind of net out. Like how are you thinking about growth by segment versus your original expectations?

Yes. So Andy, as we've indicated, we expect all 7 segments to show positive organic growth this year. I think you've characterized the first quarter pretty well. I think what we saw is those CapEx-related segments like Test & Measurement and Welding.

Test and Measurement, obviously, particularly in semiconductors and electronics, as Michael indicated, grew more than 15%. And I would say with continued order strength here into Q2. Welding, it's been a tough environment for a few years, but we grew 6% in Q1, a mixture of some strong order activity, again, which continues into Q2 and continued improvement in CBI. And I think encouraging on welding, the strength was pretty broad-based. It wasn't just in industrial markets, which we started seeing in Q4, but it also in Q1 bled into the commercial platforms as well.

So certainly, on those CapEx-related markets, I think very strong strength, strong order activity. And then on the more challenged consumer-facing markets, even though they're challenged, we continue to outgrow those markets. If we look at automotive as a prime example where we again demonstrated a couple of hundred basis points of improvement over the market, similarly in construction and even in areas like Polymers & Fluids, where automotive aftermarket, we showed a very healthy market outgrowth versus retail point of sales in automotive aftermarket. So I think it's a tale of 2 markets right now.

We're seeing the industrial markets, CapEx markets, very strong, great order activity. But even in those consumer-facing markets, which are improving a little bit, we're outgrowing those markets.

That's helpful, Chris. And maybe a similar question on margin for you, Michael. You reiterated the incrementals for the year in the mid- to high 40s. Are you getting there at all differently?

Because I mean, Test & Measurement and auto look good, but Food Equipment obviously was lower. Was that just, call it, lower absorption in the quarter and it gets better from here? Are you seeing increased inflation sort of impact you at all? Like how do you think about that?

Yes. I think, Andy, overall, the incremental margin assumptions, the operating margin assumptions are unchanged from where we were when we gave guidance on our last call. We continue to expect incrementals in the mid- to high 40s, and we expect to improve operating margins by 100 basis points this year. Seasonally, Q1, as we talked about on the last call, always starts out a little lower and then margins and incrementals improve sequentially as we go through the year.

We also expect, based on current run rates, that we will see some increased operating leverage as we go through from Q1 to Q2 and into the back half of the year. So overall, the margin expectations, as I think Chris said, is that every one of our segments will improve operating margins this year. Obviously, the ones that are benefiting from some positive demand trends, in particular, should be expected to maybe outperform a little bit on those incrementals. Just a word on food, I'd say, certainly an anomaly in that segment in terms of the margin performance and the incrementals in the first quarter.

It's really an isolated challenge in one particular end market on the institutional side, and it relates back to the month of January. So we did see improving demand trends in FEG, in Food Equipment as well in that particular end market as we went through February, March and April. But it's certainly something we will continue to keep a close eye on. I would just add, while we're on margins that while some of the more growth challenged businesses that we -- Chris talked about, Polymers & Fluids, maybe automotive, construction, continue to execute at a very high level.

And you see that despite some of these top line challenges, they continue to expand margins, which is really encouraging.

Your next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook with Truist Securities.

I guess just -- my first question, can you just help us understand, I mean, last quarter, it sounds like you were pretty positive on short-cycle momentum, things improving, your confidence level today with some of the uncertainty related to the war with Iran and macro and whether you saw any change in sort of the cadence of sales throughout the quarter or into April? And then my second question, can you just give us an update on CBI, the contribution expected for 2026 and whether you're contemplating other parts of the portfolio that we're having a harder time with CBI. So perhaps there's opportunities to refocus to certain product lines, which are being more successful versus not?

Yes. Thank you, Jamie. So maybe I'll take the first part and then hand it over to you, Chris, for the CBI question. I'd say in terms of overall confidence, I'll start with the context that we came in right along with our plan for the first quarter.

We talked about on the last call that we expected a step down from Q4 to Q1. And we actually, on the top line, did a little bit better than that. So I would say, if anything, we are more confident today as we sit here today. I think it's important to mention that our guidance today is based on the current levels of demand that we're seeing in these businesses. And in some of these businesses, maybe Welding and Test and Measurement, in particular, we are seeing order rates that are meaningfully higher than the organic growth rates that those segments put up in the first quarter.

That is not included in our guidance today. Again, based on kind of our past practice, this is based on current run rates. And I think certainly, maybe a little bit more of a challenge in maybe a place like Food Equipment, which we just talked about. But we believe as we sit here today, we have more than enough strength in those CapEx-related and semi-related segments to offset any challenges there.

And like I said, we're more confident in our organic growth guidance of 1% to 3% today than we were on the last call. So that's maybe how I would think about it. Just one last word on automotive because automotive did have a slower start in China. So you need to factor in that automotive builds in China were down 10% in Q1, and they are projected to be flat here in Q2. So we're expecting a pretty meaningful ramp from Q4 -- from Q1 to Q2 with sequential growth in kind of the low to mid-single digits.

We expect meaningful sequential margin improvement more than 100 basis points. We expect incremental margins to improve. And if you just look at the cadence that we outlined, which I think was your other question, the EPS split 48-52, we just did 23% in Q1, which is exactly what we said on the call last time, that would imply that for the second quarter, the EPS contribution would be about 25% to the full year. And as we sit here today, we are -- we feel very confident in our ability to deliver both Q2 and the full year.

And then, Jamie, on your question on CBI. And although the opportunity profile in CBI can look a little different segment to segment, division to division, what I would say is that we have strong momentum right across the company on CBI, and we're really encouraged by the progress that we're making in every segment. We continue to see this in increasing strength in our pipeline of new products. It's one of the reasons why even in some of these slower growth markets, we're outperforming those markets.

We have several successful new product launches this year across the portfolio. If it was to call out segments, I could call it all 7, but I would say Welding, Test & Measurement, Food Equipment and Automotive. Good progress in '25, obviously, in CBI yield, 40 basis points of improvement. And based on what we see in Q1, we're tracking really well here to deliver incremental improvement in 2026 on the path to 3% plus here by 2030, if not before.

Patent filings as well continue to be strong, obviously, up very strongly in the last couple of years, 18% in '24, 9% in '25, and we see additional increases in 2026. And as we said before, patent filings continues to be a very strong leading indicator of CBI at ITW, given the customer-back nature of our innovation, which means that more often than not, patent filings are there to protect important customer solutions. And so increased patent activity is often pretty well correlated with future revenue growth. So really feel very positive of what we're seeing in terms of the engagement, the enthusiasm, the followership around CBI, and we're now starting to see this come through in patent filings and yield.

Your next question comes from the line of Tami Zakaria with JPMorgan.

I have one question, and it's rather long-term driven question. As you think about your Food Equipment business, how do you view the proliferation of GLP-1 drugs and its impact on demand from restaurants and the hospitality industry? I see you had really strong growth in the quarter from restaurants. You mentioned QSRs.

But just longer term, is GLP-1 on your radar as you plan for this segment over the coming few years?

I would say, Tami, it's not something we're giving a lot of thought to. I would say GLP-1 early days. And I would also say that if you look at Food Equipment, restaurants still represents a smaller -- particularly QSR represents a smaller portion of our business. The biggest portion is institutional.

We have a sizable restaurant business, but a smaller piece certainly is in QSR, which is probably more directly impacted. So I'd say early to tell. It's not something that's on our radar at this point. But like I say, I think particularly, as you mentioned, QSR, it's not a huge part of our business, although it's growing nicely.

And I would just add, as we've said before, Chris, Food Equipment is one of the most fertile segments from an innovation standpoint. There's so much room for customer-back innovation, and we would expect that to continue to only accelerate from here and offset any pressures like the ones that you are talking about.

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Volkmann with Jefferies.

I was going to stick with food as well because that QSR comment kind of caught my attention. Do you think that, that market is actually turning? And -- or is there something that you're doing that's kind of ITW specific there? Yes, I'll leave it there.

Yes. I think it's hard to say the market is turning, Steve. I do think that we've got some interesting innovations going on in that space. A large -- as Michael mentioned, I mean, the food equipment space, very fertile from an innovation standpoint.

We have new product launches in all product categories in 2026 here, really driven around critical customer pain points like energy, water, labor savings. And all those trends are very relevant in QSR. So I'm pretty sure that a large part of our QSR growth is coming from innovation.

And I would just add, we always talk about this is the strength of the service business. So while there may be QSR, in particular, can be a little bit lumpy. I think the service business is more of an annuity type business. And our ability to put up 3%, 4%, 5% organic growth on a consistent basis at attractive margins kind of buffers any kind of some of that lumpiness that you might see in the businesses that you're talking about.

Got it. Okay. And then, Michael, it sounded like there was a margin thing that happened in the quarter that was very specific. Should we assume 2Q is kind of back to normal?

Yes. I think there's really nothing unusual about Q1, I'd say, other than the slow start maybe in Food Equipment. I think if you look at kind of the -- how the quarter progressed, January started a little bit slower because of Food Equipment, and then we improved from a growth standpoint in February, got even better in March. I think March organic was up 4%.

And in April, we're off to a really good start with organic growth. If you look at our full year guidance range, 1% to 3%, we're probably trending towards the high end of that range here in April. And so that's really the top line. On margins, we expect a sequential improvement, like I said, from Q1 to Q2, we just did 25.4%.

We would expect more than 100 basis points of improvement sequentially from Q1 to Q2. So that will put it somewhere around 26.5%, 27%-ish and then a little bit of improvement further from Q2 to Q3 on margins and as well in Q4. From a growth standpoint, from Q2 to Q3, revenues based on run rates, again, are kind of about the same in Q3 and Q4. But that is all that we need to deliver some meaningful organic growth towards the higher end of the range in the second half of this year. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of context.

Your next question comes from the line of Julian Mitchell with Barclays.

Michael, there are a couple of other calls going on. But just to clarify, your comments on the top line just now, were you referring to sort of total company there in terms of the confidence of getting to the higher end of the range? Just obviously, we've had some questions on you were just over flat in Q1, and you've got sort of 2% pegged at the midpoint for the year, and you tend to just guide with run rates, as you say. Is there anything happening on price later in the year maybe that comes in because of cost inflation that gets the growth moving up?

Well, I think, Julian, there's as we've said before, the first quarter was right in line with our plan. So the organic growth rate was, as we described it on the last earnings call. And how the year is projected to unfold, the way we've modeled it is based on our typical seasonality. In terms of maybe just a comment on price since you asked, I mean, we had a plan assumption going into the year around price as well as price cost.

Given some of the inflationary pressures that we're seeing just like everybody else, -- we -- our divisions have reacted from a price standpoint. We now expect a little bit more price, and that will start to come through primarily in the second quarter and then carry forward into Q3 and Q4. So I think it's fair to say maybe there might be a little bit more of a price impact there. But broadly, we are very close to our original plan as we sit here today, including the organic growth projection of 1% to 3%, nothing has really changed relative to our guidance other than, as we said, we've seen some really positive demand trends in 2 segments in particular.

That's helpful. And when we're looking at the operating margin guidance, you're off to a good start versus that 70 bps or so acceleration that's guided for margins at the midpoint for the year as a whole. If we're thinking about some of the margins that were weakest, I think Food Equipment, you've dealt with already. Anything in Welding that we should think about over the balance of the year, the margins there perhaps picking up steam?

And sort of company-wide, is operating leverage fairly steady as you move through 2026?

Yes. I mean what I can tell you, Julian, is that as we sit here today, we would expect every segment to improve margins in Q2 relative to Q1. And then we would expect sequential improvement to those margins again in every segment in Q3 and into Q4. Now like we've said before, and you mentioned Welding specifically, those are, as you know, best-in-class operating margins by a fair margin. So you would expect maybe to see less improvement in the segments that have margins at or above 30%. And you should expect to see a lot more improvement in places like Test & Measurement, which there's a little bit of impact from some recent acquisition activity.

But as volume and price begins to pick up as we go through the year, you're going to see some really solid operating leverage in the Test & Measurement business as well.

Julian, I would just add to that, that we have really good line of sight on the 100 -- at least 100 basis points of improvement from Enterprise Initiatives.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Obin with Bank of America.

David Ridley-Lane: This is David Ridley-Lane on for Andrew Obin. Look, I think you've been very clear on expecting improvements in organic growth into the second quarter, calling out specifically for the Food Equipment segment that looked positive. What about the Specialty Products segment?

Yes. So I think a little bit of an impact from the Middle East kind of delayed sales in the aerospace business, which is sitting on significant order and backlog that those sales have been delayed. So that was about -- that and the combination of PLS efforts that are somewhat, I'd say, front-end loaded this year, reduced the overall organic growth rate by 3 points in specialty in the first quarter. We would expect that growth rate in Specialty to improve from here.

I'd say the equipment businesses in Specialty are performing very well. And then in some of the more consumer-oriented businesses, there are some challenges as you are well aware, as Chris talked about. And then there are places like the medical business that is growing leaps and bounds at this point in time. So it's really all those factors offsetting each other.

And as we said, we expect the specialty business to deliver positive organic growth this year and meaningful margin improvement based on what we're seeing in the businesses that make up specialty as we sit here today.

David Ridley-Lane: And then with the Supreme Court's ruling against the IEEPA tariff, several manufacturing companies have filed for refunds. Where do you stand in that process for yourself?

So given -- with respect to tariff recovery, I mean, given our producer we sell philosophy, I mean, the reality is the direct impact of tariffs was largely mitigated at ITW. And to the extent that there was an impact, we were able to recover this in price. So in this regard, tariff recovery is not something that's on our radar, I would say, and we certainly don't have anything in our guidance for it.

And that concludes today's session. Thank you for participating in today's conference call. All lines may disconnect at this time.