MSA Safety Incorporated (MSA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the MSA Safety Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tyler Herzing. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to MSA Safety's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This is Tyler Herzing, Senior Manager of Investor Relations. I'm joined by Steve Blanco, President and CEO and Julie Beck, Senior Vice President and CFO; and Stephanie Sciullo, President of our Americas segment. During today's call, we will discuss MSA Safety's Second Quarter 2026 financial results and provide an update on our full year 2026 outlook. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that the matters discussed during this call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, all projections and anticipated levels of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. These risks, uncertainties and other factors are detailed in our SEC filings. MSA Safety undertakes no duty to publicly update any forward-looking statement made on this call except as required by law. We have included certain non-GAAP financial measures as part of our discussion this morning. The non-GAAP reconciliations are available in the appendix of today's presentation. The presentation and press release are available on our Investor Relations website at investors.msasafety.com. Moving on to today's agenda. Steve will first provide an update on the business. Julie will then review our second quarter 2026 financial performance and 2026 outlook. Steve will then provide closing remarks. He will then open the call for your questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve Blanco. Steve?

Thanks, Tyler, and good morning, everyone. Again, we appreciate your continued interest in MSA Safety. I'm on Slide 6. The team performed well in the second quarter as we continued to serve our singular mission of protecting workers around the world while advancing the commitments outlined in our Accelerate strategy. . For the second quarter, we achieved 6% reported sales growth and delivered robust margin expansion with adjusted earnings per share of $2.40, up 24% from last year. We also generated strong free cash flow, which enabled $47 million of returns to shareholders via buybacks and dividends. In addition, we completed the acquisition of Autronica Fire and Security in early July. Looking at sales by product category. Organic detection sales were consistent with the prior year as mid-single-digit growth in portable gas detection was offset by a low single-digit decline in fixed monitoring where demand and shipment activity were impacted by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. In the Americas, we saw strong growth in fixed and portable gas detection, delivering high single-digit growth on top of a double-digit growth comparison from the prior year. In fire service, organic sales decreased 2% year-over-year, primarily due to lower SCBA sales as 2025 AFG grant-related orders in the Americas have materialized slower than initially expected in the first half. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security remained closed until late May and created order choppiness in the quarter. Moving forward, we remain very encouraged by order momentum that accelerated through the end of June. In international, SCBA growth in EMEA was offset by softness in APAC. Organic sales in industrial PPE were up 16%, reflecting healthy demand across our core industrial markets and the broad underlying strength of industrial activity. In Americas, strength was driven by demand tied to the ongoing market adoption of our Type 2 safety helmet, the H2. In International, growth in protective ballistic helmets remained robust, benefiting from the ongoing shift toward defense-related spending in Europe. Our organic orders were strong with a book-to-bill of approximately one time which is above second quarter seasonal patterns. Year-over-year order growth was broad-based across our segments and product categories. Sequentially, we saw similar growth trends. Moving to Slide 7. The progress we're making across the business reflects the strategic actions we've taken to strengthen our portfolio, expand our technology capabilities and position MSA for long-term growth. Let me highlight a few examples from the quarter demonstrating that execution in action. First, growth in our H2 safety helmet, which protects workers against vertical and lateral impacts reflects our commitment to continued leadership in the premium safety markets we serve. Combining the most comprehensive head protection product line in the industry unmatched brand recognition and our ability to support large customized orders at scale, we continue to differentiate ourselves in the market and strengthen our competitive positioning with customers. We also continue to make progress with MSA+ where Connected Solutions represented more than half of portable gas detection growth in the quarter and now account for 14% of total portable sales versus 10% last year. We're encouraged by the ongoing adoption of MSA+ and early performance indicators of our newly launched ALTAIR io 6 solution as well as the growth we're seeing in the traditional portable gas detection business. Additionally, the advancement of the MSA business system continues to improve the way we execute across the company by creating greater discipline and consistency across the enterprise our teams are finding better ways to serve our customers and enhance productivity. As expected, positive price/cost was a contributor to performance in the first half. reflecting the benefits of strategic pricing actions and improved productivity enabled by MBS. While our continuous improvement journey is ongoing, the benefits of those efforts are increasingly evident in the strength of our operating performance and the financial results we delivered in the first half of the year. Finally, our strong balance sheet and disciplined approach to capital allocation continue to provide meaningful strategic flexibility. In the first half, we returned $118 million to shareholders, a 45% increase from the prior year and increased our dividend for the 56th consecutive year. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Julie to walk through the financial results for the second quarter in more detail and our '26 outlook.

Thank you, Steve, and good day, everyone. We appreciate you joining the call. Starting on Slide 9 with the quarterly financial highlights. Second quarter sales were $503 million, an increase of 6% on a reported basis over the prior year. Sales were up 3% on an organic basis while currency translation was a 2% tailwind and M&D added 1% to overall growth. GAAP gross margin was 49.5%, an increase of 210 basis points sequentially and 290 basis points over the prior year. Year-over-year gross margin reflects the strength of our MSA business system, including strategic pricing, productivity, value-added engineering efforts as well as favorable transactional foreign exchange. Also included in the quarter was approximately $4 million of tariff refunds which favorably impacted gross margin by approximately 100 basis points. Adjusted gross margin, excluding tariff refunds trended at approximately 49% for the first half. GAAP operating margin was 22.2%, a 410 basis point increase driven by the gross margin expansion. Adjusted operating margin was 24.1% up 230 basis points sequentially and 270 basis points over last year. Excluding the tariff refund, adjusted incremental operating margin was 52%. We continue to invest in our innovative safety products and solutions with research and development expenses of $19 million in the quarter, and we continue to effectively manage SG&A with the year-over-year increase primarily due to M&C, SG&A, higher variable compensation and merit inflation, partially offset by cost discipline. Quarterly GAAP net income increased 37% year-over-year to $86 million, while diluted earnings per share increased 40% to $2.23 per share. Increased sales and margin expansion were primary drivers of earnings per share growth with benefits from M&C, lower tariffs, share repurchases and a lower effective tax rate. On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share were $2.40, up 24% from last year. Now I'd like to review our segment performance. In our Americas segment, Sales increased 7% year-over-year on a reported basis, 5% of that was organic. We delivered double-digit organic growth in industrial PPE and high single-digit growth in Detection. Currency translation added a 2% tailwind to reported growth. The adjusted operating margin was 32%, a 290 basis points increase compared to the previous year. The margin improvement was primarily due to strong execution, including strategic pricing, productivity, favorable transactional foreign exchange and lower tariffs, partially offset by inflation. Excluding the tariff refund, adjusted incremental operating margin was 53%. As expected, sales in our International segment increased sequentially, growing 17%. Sales increased 5% year-over-year on a reported basis with a 3% contribution from MNC and a 2% tailwind from foreign exchange. Organic sales were consistent with the prior year as strong growth in industrial PPE offset a double-digit decline in detection primarily due to the Middle East conflict. Sales in fire service were consistent with the prior year. Adjusted operating margin was 15.5%, 240 basis points above last year and 500 basis points higher than the first quarter on stronger volume. Margin expansion from a year ago was driven by the inclusion of M&C, productivity and favorable transactional foreign exchange, partially offset by inflation. Adjusted incremental operating margin was 62%. Now turning to Slide 10. We generated free cash flow of $83 million, which was 96% of earnings, marking a 118% increase in free cash flow generation compared to a year ago on higher operating earnings and lower capital expenditures. First half free cash flow conversion was 94%. In the second quarter of last year, we made the strategic investment to strengthen our manufacturing footprint at our Detection Center of Excellence in Cranberry Township, our weighted average interest rate for the quarter was 3.8%. We returned $47 million to shareholders via $26 million of share repurchases and $21 million of dividends. First half capital returns to shareholders totaled $118 million 45% above first half 2025 levels, driven by increased share repurchases. Now that the Autronica acquisition has closed and consistent with prior messaging, we expect to continue to repurchase shares in the second half but at a lower rate as we prioritize debt repayment. Liquidity at quarter end was $1.2 billion, and our pro forma liquidity post Autronica is a healthy $600 million. Our M&A pipeline remains robust. Net debt decreased by $33 million sequentially, and our adjusted net leverage at quarter end was 0.8x including the debt for the acquisition of Autronica, which was financed using a combination of cash on hand and our revolver, pro forma net leverage as of June 30, 2026, is 1.8x and lower than we discussed for post-acquisition leverage in our last earnings call. Let's turn to our 2026 outlook on Slide 11. Our outlook reflects low double-digit total revenue growth in 2026, supported by our expectations of mid-single-digit organic growth, a mid-single-digit contribution from acquisitions and 1 to 2 points of favorable translational foreign exchange based on current rates. We maintain our mid-single-digit organic growth outlook, which is supported by our second quarter performance and the overall health of our order book. We have a solid pipeline of opportunities in the U.S. Fire business and the global detection market for the second half of the year. We continue to monitor and strategically manage the challenges presented by the geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, most notably in the Middle East. As a reminder, sales in the Middle East represent a mid-single-digit percentage of overall sales. We expect a moderate tempering in gross margin in the second half, which reflects the delayed impact of inflation caused by the Middle East conflict as this higher cost inventory is reflected in our income statement. Excluding the impact of any new tariffs, we expect full year adjusted gross margin to be in the 47.5% to 48.5% range. For modeling purposes, our interest expense range has increased to $40 million to $43 million. Full year tax rate and pension income remain unchanged. Starting in May and moving forward, our sales growth contributions from M&C will be included in our organic sales number. As we look ahead, we remain focused on executing our Accelerate strategy and are confident in our ability to deliver mid-single-digit organic sales growth in 2026. With that, I'd like to pass it back to Steve.

Thank you, Julie. I am on Slide 13. Before I close, I do want to take a moment and recognize Dave Howells, who retired on July 1 after nearly 45 years with MSA. His career is a testament to the connection so many of our employees field our mission and the important work we do every day. Throughout his career, he played an important role in strengthening customer and channel partner relationships around the world. In his role as President, MSA International and throughout his years of service, Dave has made a lasting impact on our company. So on behalf of all of us at MSA, I want to thank Dave for his leadership partnership, friendship and many contributions over the course of his career. We're also excited to officially welcome the Autronica team to the MSA family, following the completion of the previously announced transaction in early July. It's been great to see the energy and excitement across both organizations, and we're thrilled to have them join the MSA team. I look forward to working together as we begin this next phase of growth. Finally, I'm proud of our team's performance and continued progression of our Accelerate strategy in the second quarter. Thank you to all of our associates for their continued commitment to serving our customers. With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Tom Sano from JPMorgan.

This is Ethan on for Tom. If I recall correctly, you said last quarter that roughly 2/3 of the AFG related orders were still outstanding and expect to come, do you expect the bulk of these to kind of come into the second half? And then when looking at more 4Q, do you expect funding to kind of go back to a normalcy? Or will -- do you anticipate a little bit of slippage into 2027?

Yes. Thanks for the question. So if we look at the fire service, certainly, as we parse out the AFG orders from the '25 grants, they've come slower than we anticipated. Our pipelines got the orders in there, but they really just haven't come through as fast as we thought. I would say if you look at June and July, and I talked about this in the prepared remarks, we did see really nice uptick in Acceleration of the order pace, as I said, in June, but also we've seen the same thing in July. So that's a good indicator for us that, that should continue. And as far as '26, the signals on AFG are very positive. Team is really indicating the strong desire to accelerate the deliveries versus last year. And they've done a nice job thus far working with fire departments, really on the application process, even though it started later because the government was shut down through mid-May. So the indicators are really strong for them to action on the '26 grant at a better pace, which I think enables the firefighters and fire departments to do that. So when we look at the demand signals we have and we think about the pipeline for the second half, we're pretty optimistic about where the fire service is going to go. Now it might lean a little farther into the second half. But -- and anybody that's followed us for a while understand how this business is lumpy, but we have good confidence there.

And then now that ALTAIR io has kind of been in the field, what has been the initial customer feedback that you've seen? Have you seen any early upticks tracking against your expectations? And it's good to see MSA+ an adoption rate of 14% of sales. Do you see this trend kind of continue into the second half in the future?

We do. We do. The short answer is the MSA+ platform, which includes the io 4 and the recently launched io 6 continues to be very well received by the customer base as well as our other solutions within the portable gas detection market. We talked again about that growth. We still saw growth in that portable gas detection legacy business. But as I noted, we're at 14% of total portables with the MSAs platform. Io 6 early indicator performance is really good, and I expect you're going to see that continue to accelerate. Again, this is the first year, as we noted, I think I mentioned this in the call earlier this year, that's a longer cycle product. So it takes a little bit of time for it to build into orders, but we've seen the order pace has been better than we expected so far, frankly. So as we continue to see that play out, that's going to have an even bigger impact on that number. So overall, it's going very well. Customer feedback continues to be super positive and I think that's going to be just a growing piece of our business in the future.

The next question comes from Quinn Fredrickson from Baird.

Within industrial PPE and other, could you discuss maybe how much of the strength there was short cycle versus ballistic helmet orders? And maybe any color on what specific end markets are driving the strength in Americas? .

Sure. So if we start with -- you're asking about the international piece on the industrial PPE, we did see some really nice strength in the protective ballistic helmet side of the business, which we expect to continue as we've seen activity increase there with a lot of the European government spending more money in the defense sector and environment but we also continue to see nice performance in fall protection. And I think that, that will be something you see continue in the second half. As we think about just looking at international industrial, really strong quarter overall. We're expecting it to be some solid performance in the second half. There's -- the indicators we have in the pipeline of business continue to be really solid across that platform. Certainly, the protective ballistics will be part of that story, but we expect the others to do well as well. And then in the Americas, the underlying theme really is strong. It's nice to see the industrial strength. If you think about infrastructure, really the core industrial investments we're seeing, certainly including some benefits from data centers. But I would have to say you're seeing a nice build-out start to occur as that capital investment on the industrial side is playing out. That, coupled with what we talked about with the type 2 H2 helmet that we've introduced in the last year. It's really looking pretty positive. The nice thing is we aren't seeing that slowdown. We expect that to continue into the second half. And the indicators in July are just that we're seeing the same strength we saw in the second quarter.

And any update on electronic supply and cost? I know some other companies have recently flagged that. Is that becoming more of an issue for you? And is that part of the second half moderation in gross margin that you mentioned? Or are you still able to manage through that pretty well? .

It is. We are managing through that. We've certainly seen and are managing some of those cost inputs on the electronics side. I'd say the cost is part of the story, which we have certainly accounted for. The second part of the story is just ensuring we have the right inventory in place. So we have certainly taken an additional inventory, and we'll do so as we go forward to make sure that we have continuity of supply. So those 2 things are right on our radar screen of making sure we don't lose sight of that. And I think we're in a good place for that right now. We certainly, depending on what happens with that. But as we see and forecast that supply and demand story, I think we've got a good handle on what that looks like in our forecast.

The next question comes from Jeff Van Sinderen from B. Riley.

Just kind of focusing a little bit on the fire service. Can you remind us what does the new NFPA standard stand? And then when do you see the replacement cycle really inflecting there?

The NFPA standard, of course, we launched our product some time ago and got approval for that. Now all competitors have approval for the NFPA standard update. So that has -- is something that's in the rearview mirror, and I don't think anybody is really concerned about that going forward. It did certainly slow down as we saw late last year a bit but not as much as the government challenges. I think you put those 2 together, it paused a lot of the ordering that we had hoped to see. And it still continues to take a little bit longer than we'd like. But again, that's -- sometimes that's a fire service. As we look at the cycle, I would say that when we think of our pipeline of business, we're seeing strengthening pipeline numbers start to show up. So that's something I would anticipate. It's just going to start playing out in the future years. You're going to see a little bit of that maybe in late '26. But certainly, as you get into '27, a little bit more and then a little bit more. It wasn't that we had a big drop. I just would note that, too. So we have seen some moderation over the last few years, but we anticipate that you're going to see an inflection point next year that really reverses itself.