Crane NXT, Co. (CXT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the 26th Annual CJS Securities New Ideas for the New Year conference. I'm Bob Labick, President of CJS. I'm pleased to have with us Crane NXT here today. Crane NXT is an industrial technology company focused on securing, detecting and authenticating critical items for its customers. With us presenting from management are President and CEO, Aaron Saak; Senior Vice President and CFO, Christina Cristiano and VP of Investor Relations, Matt Roache. We'll start with the 10- to 15-minute overview management, and then we'll move on to a fireside chat. For clients interested in asking management questions, you can send them through the portal, and we'll try to weave those into the fireside chat. And with that, it's my pleasure to hand it off to Aaron to talk about Crane NXT. Aaron?

Good morning, Bob, and thank you for the invitation here to join our conference. We certainly appreciate that and happy New Year to everyone as well joining us today. And appreciate the opportunity to talk about Crane NXT and really our plan ahead not only for '26, but I'm sure we'll talk to our Q&A, Bob, of the growth vector that we're on and started on a few years ago with the company. Now before I get into some formal presentation and comments, I just want to remind everyone of the forward-looking statement disclosure that you see here on the screen, and I'll leave that for you all to read at your pleasure. So with that, let me just take a moment to introduce Crane NXT to you if you're not familiar with the company. As we close out 2025 based on our guidance, we will be at about $1.6 billion of sales with approximately 50% is recurring and reoccurring revenue and very strong adjusted segment operating margins in the mid-20% range with leverage slightly above 2%. And we're very proud of that financial profile. It's the strength of the company, from our margins to free cash flow. And now with increasing growth in our revenue as we've deployed capital to move the portfolio into new adjacent markets. And these are really all centered around our core strategy of providing technology that secures, detects and authenticates our customers' products. The company, as many of you may know, now, was launched what will soon be 3 years ago from a separation of Crane Holdings and core to what we do is a philosophy of continuous improvement, best embodied through our Crane Business System, or CBS. And we apply that every day through hundreds of Kaizens through the course of the year and particularly to our new acquisitions. And that's really where we've been focused over the last few years of following a disciplined capital allocation strategy, to continue to expand the portfolio in near adjacent markets in a very programmatic fashion, and solidify our position as a leading provider of technologies in authentication and soon traceability technologies. So as I move to the next slide, just again to break down the company in a little more detail. When you look today as we close out 2025 on a pro forma basis, both segments that we report publicly will be about 50-50 in terms of the portfolio. When you look at our geography, 60% in the Americas, but with a very nice and continuing growing part of our portfolio in emerging markets in Middle East, Africa and APAC, where our currency and authentication businesses have a very nice stronghold. And then I think what's unique to this company. And as many of you know who followed it, particularly in our currency business is the strength and depth of our customer relationships that span many, many years. And so that adds resiliency overall to the portfolio, and we're particularly proud of that. Now as we talk about the company, with our mission here of trusted technology solutions that secure detect and authenticate what matters most to our customers, it really transcends now both our reportable segments. Security and authentication technologies, which will be approaching $800 million as we close out 2025 and Crane Payment Innovations, or CPI at about $850 million, again, tied together now with a common set of technologies and applications for our customers, all around secure detect and authenticate and then bridge at the bottom by the application, the rigorous application of the Crane Business System. And we're building this portfolio, both organically from the original 2 assets when we separated the company, but through M&A, which led us to the formation of Crane Authentication in May of 2025 just, call it, 6, 7 months ago, and we have a very healthy M&A funnel in place and a strong balance sheet to continue the evolution of the company. And we're already doing that as we announced in September with our next acquisition, which is Antares Vision. This company fits squarely on our strategy of providing detection, inspection and track and trace software for the life sciences and food and beverage markets primarily. And it's very similar to other parts of our portfolio where Antares makes equipment, and you can see a picture of that on this slide, which is representative of equipment sold into the pharma market, and that would be advanced inspection and detection technology. It provides aftermarket services as well as commissioning services for those large pieces of equipment like displayed in the picture. And then it brings to us an increasingly important software capability for tracking and tracing of products from the moment a manufacturer all the way through the moment the product is sold to a consumer. And particularly in life sciences, that's very important as more governments are regulating that for their pharmaceutical products within a country. The company overall fits very nicely in the portfolio for us. It's a meaningful addition which will bring approximately EUR 200 million of revenue. This is based on their 2024 financials, about 15% EBITDA margin which is consistent with our other acquisitions. We typically are dilutive at the beginning to the overall Crane NXT margins and our plan through the application of CBS is to walk those up over the next several years. And moves us further into markets like life sciences and food and beverage in this track and trace market that has clear tailwinds that are long term and resilient. And so really adding a nice addition to the Crane NXT portfolio, very consistent with our programmatic M&A. Now we just announced as we closed out 2025, the completion of the first step of our acquisition of Antares Vision that will continue to proceed through the first part here of 2026. And then we'll eventually be taking the company private and fully consolidated as part of Crane NXT throughout the early part of 2026. So on track and very excited about what this does for our portfolio. So with that, Bob, hopefully, that's a little overview of kind of who we are or what we've been up to in the last few months, and we're happy to move to Q&A.

I appreciate that overview. That's great to set the stage. And so obviously, lots of good things happened in 2025 for Crane NXT. There's also -- there's a fair bit of volatility in shares. So I wanted to kind of set the stage here to ask a question and a quick overview in our mind of 2025 was a really strong performance in SAT, particularly driven by international currency and even U.S Currency bounced and it was very strong after the planned shutdown for the machining and then there was some lumpiness in CPI, and it was tariff related and pricing related. But overall, kind of Q1 through Q3 were solid meets or beats and then Q4, you raised revenue guidance, but you lowered the margin guidance. And I think kind of international currency was responsible for a bit of both of those as well as some little headwinds in vending. And so -- and then the preliminary outlook for 2026, which you gave in Q4 was for solid growth in SAT and a recovery in CPI. So revenue remains strong. That outlook is really positive. And I just wanted to dig into kind of margins there and that. And so why don't we start with international currency as that's been a big driver. You said on the Q3 earnings call, there were some kind of pull forwards of redesigns and some new wins that led to some outsourcing or partnering for international printing plus you're having some investments to add capacity. So I wanted to break that down. Let's talk about the pull forward of international currency orders. How do you schedule these and do you have to scramble if customers come first and ways to address them? We'll start there. I'll stop talking and I'll let you talk for a minute.

There's a lot there. I think on a high level, if I go back to kind of your first comments, I think that's correct. I think you've got it. We're really pleased actually with the -- particularly the performance of SAT this year holistically and the growth we've seen. And CPI, like many other companies, has had to navigate some direct impacts and indirect impacts from tariffs. And we think we've zoomed in on what that is, and it's -- as we said, led to some changes in the profile of where we saw revenue growth in '25 in CPI. But I think that, that's well understood now to us. Still with fantastic margins, by the way, as you know, in that segment. So to double-click a little on international currency, truly is the standout for us in 2025. And it gives us very high confidence in 2026, given the strength of our backlog. And in fact, as we mentioned in the Q3 call, we're booking now into 2027. And I believe fundamentally, what we're hearing from our customers is consistent with what we've been talking about now with you, Bob, for 3 years is we're the technology leader undisputed in a world that central banks are more and more worried about counterfeiting. I would also say we're, by and large, the company designing the most beautiful bank notes providing good quality as well to our customers, which is an added benefit that further reinforces our brand. And so as we look at our pipeline, we see these -- the ability to continue at, now we say record high backlog is just the backlog. Now it was kind of at this high clip and it's exceeded our expectations from where you and I were having this conversation a year ago. That's a good thing for us. And it suggests a very strong future for Crane Currency. And what we want to do when currency bids come up for renewal, just to walk through that process, governments typically bid on a new design every 5 to 10 years. And what we want to do is when that comes up, we want to lock in particularly the countries and central banks we want to work with, they're designed because that becomes then an annuity stream for the next decade, let's say, for us. And if we do our job well, it just keeps continuing. And so that's why it's a really important metric, as Christina and I talked about now for many -- for a few years, how many micro-optics wins we're getting in a year and we're always targeting 10 to 15. And we felt, as we said in Q3, very confident we're going to be on that track here in 2026. So that sets us up. Now what it also means is we have governments who need currency and our backlog is growing and they want us to deliver that when they need it. And that sometimes is with very careful planning, sometimes it's not on their side. And so we're trying to adjust and make sure these economies and central banks give what they need. That's -- as we're looking at the backlog, that's really triggered and catalyzed us to make some investments starting in the back half of '25 to increase capacity both through deployment of OpEx, which some -- which you've seen, Bob, at our Nashua facility and micro-optics to add shifts and staff to train more people, to go through what may not be obvious, government security processes that take months and require money and cost and time to get a workforce ready to go, to be able to execute at a higher continuous backlog. It's also led us to work more with some outside partners to make sure the central banks get what they need, maybe faster than we originally anticipated, that comes with some margin compression because we're working with other folks. We see this as a relatively, I would say, short term. It's not -- meaning over the next 12 months, we're going to be working through this we'll be adding more ships, more trained employees that take and, in some cases, more CapEx into the business. That takes 12 to 18 months to work through and do. It's not something we can just go out and snap our fingers and do. We started it a few months ago and it's going to continue through most of 2026. We'll be in a really strong place to have an even higher performing currency business long term, really just meeting the growth of our international customers.

Got it. So yes. So digging into that, just a little more, I appreciate that answer very much. The part -- when you say partners, I don't know how much you can say, but basically, you're outsourcing the printing to another facility? And is that generally, is this the right way to think about it? Like you take the, whatever it is, 12, 18 months at a low margin because you're going to get a 5- to 10-year contract. So over the life of the contract, even if it was no margin, it's well worth it to win the contract or to maintain the contract. And get the total cash flow of the contract. Is that how we should think about the...

That's the right way. Directionally, that's the right way to think about it, Bob. I'll even break it down a little more for you. When you think about the constituents of our currency business we have our micro-optics, which is really the core of the technology for us. That is a place there's no such thing as outsourcing or partnering. We will make that, and we will protect that IP. We continue to issue new patents and new products like our surface technology that we're very excited about, and we'll expand through CapEx and hiring, and adding more ships to our factories to produce more. So that's pillar #1. Secondly, we make paper and substrate at the point where we get at the limit of our own capacity, we will go out and work with partners to procure other substrate. That is the lower margin part of the business. And I think from a disciplined capital allocation point of view, we would not invest more in building out more papermaking facilities. We have partners we can work with there. And then third is the actual printing of the bank notes where it all kind of comes together. There, we print, as many people know, for our international business in Malta. That facility has been going through a lot of CBS Kaizens and activities to increase capacity within the footprint. The team has done an excellent job in that. But there is a natural place where we start to get to that edge faster than we thought in terms of capacity, and it takes 12 to 24 months to get everything in place there to expand. The other side of that is partners and some of those partners or states that are our customers for a part of our business that are happy to work with us and some of our customers to use their capacity to print the notes. And so those are the -- between the paper and the printing. Those are the kind of partners we're working with. And as you said, over time, though, that should go away over a long enough time, but what we've done is we've locked in the business for a decade, and we don't want to lose that.

Great. No, that makes sense. And so effectively, I guess, just to finish on international currency, demand is a little higher than expected, and you're adding capacity, it sounds like in Malta over time to be able to do some of that printing, you won't add paper making capacity but printing capacity. And obviously, micro-optics, you're adding shifts in people and we understand, I think, that part. So what does this mean overall for the long-term outlook for kind of revenue and margins for international currency now versus maybe what you thought a year ago?

Yes. In terms of growth, it's going to continue as we believe the market is growing at kind of low single digits for international currency. We're going to be a mid-single-digit grower. So we're going to outpace the market. I think next year, as we talked about, we've set a high bar on the comps given just the growth of international currency in 2025. So it becomes a little bit more of a comp issue on a year-over-year basis as we look at '26. But long term, we've got a strong mid-single-digit, mid-single-digit-plus grower. When you look at the margin, we're going to see that a little -- I don't want to say artificially, but it will be compressed next year as we're going through the investments that we mentioned. And when I say compressed, it's probably maybe the expectations. Long term, with our continuous improvement methodologies and the increased sales of micro-optics, that will naturally drift higher over time. But we're going to balance that to try to make sure we're locking in the contracts in '26 as we make the investments long term.

Great. And you touched on in your opening remarks the Antares acquisition, the 30-plus percent that closed in December. And can you remind us the kind of once this is folded in, you mentioned as you make these acquisitions, they'll come in at a lower margin and then over time, you'll grow that margin. That's been part of the formula you told us about for 3 years. Can you remind us the kind of target margins for authentication I guess, now? And then over time, how do you expect that to grow?

Yes. Christina, do you want to take that one? Or I can add?

Yes, sure. Yes. Actually, we're really excited about the initiatives that we've already taken since we closed De La Rue in the second quarter of this year, to be able to put these 2 businesses together as 1 unified Crane Authentication platform. And as a result of that, we're able to execute and actually accelerate on the synergies that we identified during the diligence process for the acquisitions, including things like product rationalization, site rationalization, optimizing the supply chain and our manufacturing operations. And all of these actions are already in place now. And because we've taken the actions, we have a clear line of sight to what the margin accretion will be next year, and we'll exit the year next year in authentication at near 20% operating margin, which is actually ahead of the schedule that we anticipated in our investment thesis, let's say, for the acquisitions. Now what that means over the longer term though is now we'll continue to drive CBS and also synergies with our existing technology in the currency business. And as you saw, we've already begun selling micro-optics into the channel, into the authentication channel, which is a great, again, affirmation of our business case for putting these businesses together. And with that over time, you'll see those margins start to get up into the mid-20s percent similar to the rest of the business, which we're really excited about and have a very clear path to achieve.

Great. And then just kind of rounding out currency margins. We talked about the short-term headwinds right now, but you also have 2 things. I think you mentioned the security only Latin American country currency win. And then obviously, the U.S. upgrade cycle, which includes more security in the 10s and then the 50s, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So how long or when do you anticipate that, I guess, to learn more about the Latin American country and that opportunity, and then the U.S. upgrade has the positive lift for margins in currency? How does that play out kind of timing-wise?

Yes. Well, I'll start, I guess, Aaron, if you want to jump in afterwards. We're super excited for the Investor Day that we're hosting on February 25th, where we'll share a lot more information about what we're expecting. But of course, international growth, as you know, just based on our backlog is very exciting, and we've got a few really exciting wins to share more information about. I think the key here, Bob, is that increased technology content drives revenue growth and margin accretion for us. And so whether it's an international currency win or the U.S. new series and the launch -- starting with the launch of the $10 bill next year, these are all things that over time now will improve revenue growth and our profitability. And so we're very excited to kick that off in 2026, and we'll talk more about that in Investor Day.

Great. Fair enough.

Bob, I can't escape though that the opening to talk about U.S. currency as well. And I'll -- as Christina said, we're excited about international, but U.S. is set up for a strong year, as we've mentioned, we'll have high single-digit growth in that business, just simply based on the mix that the Fed put out on their order and the new $10 program, the redesign on track, progressing from exactly as we would expect as we talked in Q3 and that's unchanged. And we're actively working with the BEP on the designs of the next bills, most notably the $50. So we feel like this is a probably arguably slow train of it from a lot of people's perspective of how long this is taking, but one that's picking up steam and headed in the right direction, and it will start showing in the performance of the company over the next several years.

Yes. Very excited to -- we've been teased about the upgrade cycle and seeing the new $10 bill note. And I know that's not up to you when we get to see it. That's up to the U.S. government, but we're excited to see it as well.

We'd like you all to use it.

So you mentioned -- we talked about entires a little bit. And I think you said kind of from a balance sheet perspective, pro forma leverage should be around 2.9x after the close. And I'm assuming that for our calculation purposes, that's at [ 630 at June 30 ] is like an easy way to think about that. And then you obviously always have strong free cash flow. So you'll probably be a little lower than that by calendar year-end '26. So with that context, where does that leave you for M&A? You target 1 to 2 a year? Are there holes in the portfolio where you're looking? Has the criteria changed on that you've made and announced 3 meaningful acquisitions in authentication? Just kind of put us back between your current leverage outlook and how you're thinking about M&A?

Yes. Thanks, Bob. Right now, obviously, for the next several months, our focus is on closing Antares. That's where we won all of our efforts and then to start to drive the synergies once we actually get to the close. But our philosophy here to the core of your question is unchanged from what we've been doing. I like to say, hey, we said what we were going to do and then we did it. And I think in the view of M&A, that's exactly true. We said we would do 1 to 2 deals a year. That's the -- as you said, that's the pace we're on. And we really like this disciplined framework that says, let's do them very programmatically so we can absorb them into the portfolio. They're meaningful to the portfolio. In the case of OpSec De La Rue now Antares, and they just continue to expand the TAMs one-step adjacencies from our core that have put us in higher growth, very interesting niche markets. And the M&A funnel beyond Antares remains very strong, as strong as it's ever been, quite frankly. I think because we're expanding with each one into a new TAM or expanding our TAM. But we want to keep the leverage in place, ideally, as we've said, below 3. So when you play that out, we'd probably be looking for a next larger acquisition should opportunistically that come along, early part of '27, it probably the earliest it could -- plus or minus 6 months, these things are not science, there's some art. But we're actively cultivating and maintaining relationships with several targets. So we feel very good about that, but we want to do it in a very thoughtful, disciplined way and make sure that we keep the balance sheet in check.

Perfect. And then moving on to CPI, as we kind of mentioned in our opening, the year was a little more impacted by tariffs and pricing and hopefully, some of that uncertainty is mostly behind us now. So maybe just give us kind of an updated outlook on '26 for each of the subsegments and how we're thinking about it without stealing too much of your own thunder from your upcoming Analyst Day.

Yes. And obviously, given where we're at, maybe I'll start and let Christina add anything to it, we'll reiterate what we said in Q3 to a large extent because CPI is kind of performing as expected, Bob, from what we said over the course of the last few quarters. We looked as the tariffs started to play out, which had an effect mainly on our vending and short-cycle businesses to take a prudent approach to that outlook which we updated in Q3. Our focus has always been to maintain the high margins of that business and the great free cash flow that it kicks off. So it's -- over 100% free cash flow conversion in that business, just excellent performance there by the team. And as we said in Q3, we expect margins to come in between the 29% and 30% operating -- segment operating margins, which is fantastic. So the team is managing that situation, I would agree with you on that I think we've kind of bottomed out exactly where that business is at and performing. And as we said in Q3, as we look forward based on the portfolio and the markets it plays in, we expect it to be kind of a flat to low single-digit core growth type business with great free cash flow, great operating margins, and that's the expectation we're setting on a go-forward basis.

Terrific. And then let's say one question that came in here. Maybe I'll try to make it so you can hopefully answer it. But broadly speaking, can you discuss kind of expectations for free cash flow in '26 versus '25 based on the incremental, I guess, capacity and growth that -- the capacity you're going to put in for growth in currency and how outsourcing may or may not impact that? Just -- obviously, I'm not looking for a free cash flow number, but how do those changes impact kind of year-over-year free cash flow, how should we think about that?

Yes, that's a great question. I mean in general, we expect to be in that range of, let's say, 90% to 110%, which we guided this year. And we're evaluating now the plan for 2026. So we'll have more to say about that on our earnings call, which will be in early February. But I think in general, you can still expect us to be in that general range, just based on the very strong performance, particularly in CPI, which drives really strong free cash flow.

Great. And then one of the questions that we're asking most companies are trying to weave into all of our questions today is, obviously, a market theme throughout the last couple of years has been AI, and the build-out of AI, and how it impacts various companies. And I guess my question is, how do you guys perceive using AI in your business, how might it impact you or your businesses going forward? How does it impact counterfeiting? How does it -- where are you thinking about the impact of AI on Crane NXT over the next few years? And how are you positioning the company based on that?

Yes. Thanks, Bob. It's very topical, and I'm sure on the minds of most management teams and investors even for investors themselves within their own companies. The way we're thinking about it is really in 3 different phases. The first is taking tools that are out there that many of us use today and deploying those into our functions to help our associates just improve core productivity, call that like a further application of the tools of CBS that we have that is elevated or accelerated through the tools of AI, which I think is fantastic, right? One of our, I think, hallmarks here is the CBS toolkit. And so AI is kind of an accentuation of that quite frankly, it's an accelerator of it. So that's how we're thinking about it and actually deploying it into training, into different functions. The second step is how we're thinking about reshaping processes to really drive even deeper productivity or improved customer experience. And that's really around the core of what is in our CBS discipline of safety, quality, delivery and cost. So we want to find -- from where I sit, an application that drives a business outcome, it's not AI for AI's sake which I think a lot of companies are trying to work through today. So we've got to see business outcome, safety, quality, delivery cost. And then finally, you get into, I think, this last comment you made around the innovation of products and what's happening. And call that software. I think that's really where Antares brings a fantastic new capability to our business with the track and trace software at scale that is using AI tools and algorithms to help ensure the traceability of products and counteract counterfeiting in the journey. So I think I'm particularly excited to get that acquisition over the line in part for that capability that it brings to Crane NXT. But I think we'll keep talking about it as driving and deploying for core productivity, reshaping our processes to drive safety, quality, delivery cost and then these ways we can improve the product development cycle and improve the products themselves. So a very active conversation in the company. And we're doing that. That's how we're thinking about it. And then in each of those 3 areas, there are things we're looking at to deploy.

Terrific. And I think I can sneak in one last question from the audience, and then I will -- then we can wrap up and I'll give it back to you for closing remarks as well. But the question was as it relates to currency, international currency. Obviously, we've been talking about your record backlog and winning more and more. Has the competitive landscape change that's accelerating your wins? Or what's the overall market like? And how should people think about that?

Yes, that's a good question. I would frame it in 2 ways. One is it's kind of a classic trend that's been in existence. It's just we're seeing it more now of technology adoption moving to the higher-end technology. So I would say that's unchanged. If you look back over 3 or 5 years, we know we're the leader in more and more people. We've always said, Bob, we're going to keep adopting our technology. The proof point is in the number of micro-optic wins we have every year, that 10 to 15. So that hasn't changed so much. I think one thing that has changed is a bit of the, call it, the neighborhood effect or a tipping point effect that as countries watch their neighboring countries adopt more sophisticated technologies, they feel we're compelled to do that as -- and they also become, if they don't, a focus for counterfeiters. And so not only is counterfeiting increasing, and we know that it's getting more sophisticated, you have this effect if you don't want to be a country in a region of the world with the most -- the lowest level of security. So I think that's increased a little bit of the pace of redesigns for maybe where we thought it would be 5 years ago. And I would assume that we would assume that the fact the U.S. is now going to be introducing the new currency and upgrading that very visibly will be another nice tailwind to that narrative of other countries wanting to continue to upgrade the technology. So one part of that trend has been unchanged. One, a little bit accelerated incrementally over the last year or 2.

Super. That brings us to the end of our time for this session. I know you have a very busy day, and I appreciate you very much spending time with CJS and clients. So thank you. And I'll just pass it back to you for any closing remarks.

Well, thanks, Bob. I know Christina and I always appreciate getting together with your -- both your team, but your clients to talk about Crane NXT. And I think, for those who've been with us these first 3 years in separation, you've seen the changes. Bob, we made to this portfolio, kind of putting it on a course to be a leader in authentication and traceability technologies. Antares will come to fruition in a few months, and we're well on that path. And I think the next 3 years, with what we've discussed here get even more exciting for the company. and we're in a very good position. And I look forward, as I know Christina does with many of our leaders to continue to tell that story in more detail at our upcoming Investor Day, which will be February 25th in New York. And I think we'll have a lot of exciting things to share about the future of Crane NXT. So thank you again.

Super. We'll see you there. Thanks.