The Manitowoc Company, Inc. ($MTW)

Good day, and welcome to The Manitowoc Company, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ion Warner, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call to review the company's first quarter 2026 financial performance and business update as outlined in last evening's press release. Joining me this morning with prepared remarks are Aaron Ravenscroft, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we posted our slide presentation to the Investor Relations section of our website, www.manitowoc.com, which you can use to follow along with our prepared remarks. Please turn to Slide 2. Before we start, please note our safe harbor statement in the material provided for this call. During today's call, forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 are made based on the company's current assessment of its markets and other factors that affect its business. However, actual results could differ materially from any implied or actual projections due to one or more of the factors, among others, described in the company's latest SEC filings. The Manitowoc Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or other circumstances. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Aaron.

Thank you, Ion, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to take a moment to thank the Manitowoc team for their unwavering commitment to serving our stakeholders. Over the last 12 months, the team has continued to execute our CRANES+50 strategy, enabling us to weather the downturn in the crane cycle and be better positioned for the next leg up. Although there is a great deal of uncertainty in the Middle East, Ukraine and even in the United States with respect to tariffs, the overall market has been resilient. Our orders during the first quarter were almost $650 million, and our backlog ended the period at $940 million. In addition, order rates in April remained strong. Please turn to Slide 3. Starting with the Manitowoc Way, I recently challenged our organization to eliminate hammers, similar to what we did with ladders a few years ago. We are simply too reliant on hammers that create quality problems and are a major source for safety risk. In the Shady Grove plant alone, we had over 1,200 hammers in use. Thus far, we've eliminated 264. As you can see on the slide, the organization has quickly developed a variety of improvements ranging from simple to ingenious solutions. Eliminating hammers not only helps create a safer workplace, but also supports the Manitowoc Way culture as we consistently drive for continuous improvement and innovation. Ultimately, our goal is to have 0 injuries. In terms of new product development, in March, we unveiled an 80-ton boom truck and an 800-ton 8-axle all-terrain crane at CONEXPO, both received outstanding feedback from customers and crane operators. The 8-axle crane was a real headturner at the show, and I really look forward to getting the first units into the field in 2027. Please move to Slide 4. Turning to our CRANES+50. Our non-new machine sales for the quarter grew 3% year-over-year. On a trailing 12-month basis, we improved 8% to $696 million. Growing this part of our business, which is less impacted by economic cycles and produces higher returns is a key part of our strategic plan and is working well. As I preach to our teams, for us to continuously grow our non-new machine sales, we have to focus on 4 major buckets. Number one, we are adding more service locations. For example, in Australia, we doubled the capacity of our Sydney facility, and we recently approved new service centers in Brisbane and Melbourne. Brisbane will host the 2032 Olympics, and we're preparing for a lot of activity in the region. Number two, we are adding more aftermarket sales representatives and field service techs. We ended the first quarter with 567 field service techs up 50 techs in just 3 months. The growth was driven by 2 major actions. First, we reorganized our approach to talent acquisition in North America by enhancing our recruiting team. And second, in India, we transitioned from a dealer model to a direct model in order to better service our customers. The third bucket, we are increasing sales of complementary lifting accessories. In Europe, our tower crane team has introduced anti-intrusion panels to reduce theft and to discourage curious social media influencers during the off hours. In addition, the team has introduced journals to replace the less than desirable traditional bucket system. In the U.K., our mobile team has started selling outrigger pads and a rear-mounted storage compartment, which they designed in-house. Our goal is straightforward. We want to make our customers' lives easier so they can focus on executing lifts. And the fourth bucket is the fact that we are leveraging technology. I've mentioned our implementation of ServiceMax a few times. This tool has several different modules to help us better track machines and more effectively fix and build crane repairs. In April, we completed the implementation of ServiceMax asset management system. We are now under the development of the dispatching and work order module, which increases our visibility to service work and enables us to capture more incremental revenue opportunities. Please move to Slide 5. For my regional update, let's start with the Americas. First and foremost, overall customer sentiment at CONEXPO was very positive. Crane rental houses were quite optimistic throughout the market outlook. While everyone is unhappy with tariffs, customers told us project work is abundant. In addition, dealer inventory levels declined during the first quarter, which is a great sign that folks are buying again. For example, all-terrain crane inventory levels are at a 10-year low. In Europe, the crane business feels pretty good. Demand for tower cranes continues to grow with new machine orders up 76% year-over-year, and mobile demand has remained relatively steady. In the Middle East, many big projects like the new Dubai Airport continue to move forward. Not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia has pulled back on NEOM and Trojena, but considerable development activity remains underway in Riyadh. Given the circumstances around the Iran conflict, we find ourselves in a wait-and-see mode as we monitor the situation, and I am very encouraged by the level of optimism in the region with construction companies eager to get back to business. Finally, Asia Pacific continues to gain momentum with increasing demand in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Australia and South Korea. I recently visited the new SK hynix and Samsung semiconductor projects where roughly 100 tower cranes are currently operating. Korean construction companies continue to leave me in awe of their scale and speed. The Samsung site alone will reach 70,000 workers at its peak. I left South Korea very optimistic about demand in the coming quarters. With that, I'll hand it over to Brian to walk you through the financials before I make a few closing remarks.

Thanks, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 6. Our financial performance for the quarter tracked largely in line with expectations, which supports reaffirming our previously issued guidance. We anticipated difficult comps as tariffs were a headwind to the quarter versus the prior year. The tariffs introduced in 2025 didn't fully impact us until the second half of the year. Moving to the numbers. We had orders of $646 million in the first quarter, relatively flat from a year ago on a currency-neutral basis. Order activity was solid and broadly consistent with recent trends. Keep in mind, order comps were difficult in Q1 due to the post-election bump in 2025 and the large stocking orders we received at the end of the year. Backlog ended the quarter at a strong $940 million, up $146 million from where we exited 2025 and up $142 million year-over-year. This supports our revenue expectations for the full year. Net sales in the quarter were $495 million, essentially flat on a currency-neutral basis. Non-new machine sales in the quarter were $166 million and on a trailing 12-month basis reached a record $696 million, up 8% from the prior year. While growth lagged our expectations in the first quarter, mainly due to used sales, the overall mix of non-new machine sales favored our higher-margin categories. SG&A expenses were $91 million in the quarter. On an adjusted basis, SG&A was up $7 million with foreign currency accounting for $3 million of the increase. The remaining increase was driven primarily by the CONEXPO trade show and inflation from other employee-related costs. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $20 million, down $2 million or 10% year-over-year. As expected, tariffs impacted our results by $2 million. Please turn to Slide 7. Net working capital ended the quarter at $536 million, an increase of $47 million year-over-year, driven primarily by inventory. The higher year-over-year inventory was driven by $26 million from foreign currency, $15 million from tariffs and $10 million in prototypes and was partially offset by operational improvements. Moving to cash flow. Operating activities provided $27 million of cash during the quarter. Capital expenditures were $8 million, including $6 million for our rental fleet, resulting in free cash flow of $19 million. This was a $17 million improvement year-over-year, driven by increased collections on accounts receivables. We ended the quarter with $316 million in liquidity, and our net leverage ratio was 3.1x. In April, S&P upgraded our corporate credit rating from B to B+. This upgrade underscores the progress we are making in strengthening our financial profile through the cycle, while investing in long-term growth through our CRANES+50 strategy. Looking ahead, first quarter results didn't change our expectations for the full year. And as such, we are affirming our previously issued guidance of net sales of $2.25 billion to $2.35 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $125 million to $150 million. With that, I'll turn the call back to Aaron.

Thank you, Brian. Please turn to Slide 8. Standing back and looking at the forest for the trees, I think there are many reasons to be optimistic. Number one, Europe is on the rebound. For sure, towers has rebounded more aggressively than mobiles, and there's still a big need for residential housing and power generation. Number two, in the Middle East, all things considered, folks are pretty optimistic to get back on track. In normal times, all construction would have dried up overnight with such regional conflict. Number three, in Asia, our strongest markets are pumping even in the face of weaker currencies. Number four, in LatAm, copper has traded above $6 per pound. With several new governments in the region, I believe we'll start to see more investments in brownfield and greenfield mining projects. Number five, in the U.S., although fleet ages continue to increase, customers are grudgingly making purchases. Data centers continue to expand rapidly, and there is a strong need for additional power generation and transmission infrastructure. And finally, number six, the success of our CRANES+50 strategy is increasingly helping us weather this economic cycle and positioning us for a higher margin profile in the long term. Of course, there is still a lot of uncertainty in the market, but I believe that we are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Keep in mind, we've been living in this mode essentially since 2020. There is plenty of pent-up ambition from folks to renew and expand their businesses, which is why I believe that the markets have held up steady. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Jerry Revich from Wells Fargo.

This is Kevin on for Jerry. Just had a question on the changing tariff dynamics as it relates to your outlook. Would be helpful to get more color on that, maybe bifurcating between impacts from the IEEPAoverturn and the new Section 232 ruling.

Yes. So thanks, Kevin. So a lot is going on with the tariff landscape, as you can imagine. I'll start by saying that the net go-forward impact of what is in place today is in line with what we thought coming into the year. So no real changes to our expectations based on those changes. With that said, there's still uncertainty regarding what the Section 301 country-by-country tariffs will be and what net effect they'll have on us versus the Section 122 current tariffs. Related to IEEPA, so we did file our refund through the K process. So we did pay approximately $25 million in IEEPA. So we're in a wait-and-see mode as far as that process goes. But additionally, you'll see in our Q, we voluntarily submitted a prior disclosure to customs related to potential errors in our methodology in calculating the 232 steel and steel derivative tariffs. This will allow us to review our calculation to determine if we had any adjustments required. To give some perspective, we paid approximately $18 million prior to the April change in the 232 tariffs.

Got it. Very helpful. And then given that 2Q is typically a seasonally strong quarter for both a net sales and margin perspective, how should we think about performance versus normal seasonality? Any onetime impacts we should be thinking about from 1Q?

Yes. And I said in the prepared remarks that we still -- from a comp standpoint, the second half is going to look better just because of the impact of the tariffs. They really hit us more in the second half than the first half. With that said, I think we talked about restructuring in our plan, and that's still in place. Again, that's going to affect us more favorably in the second half. So I think Q2 will be better than Q1, but I think the second half is going to be better than the first half.

We received several calls this morning -- for this morning, and I'd like to read them to you. The first question that I received online was, could you provide more color on these lifting accessories as part of your CRANES+50 strategy?

Yes. So the analogy that I use with our team internally is that the crane business is a lot like a restaurant. When you think about the restaurant, it's the steak that brings us all to the restaurant. It's that main platter. But the reality is the restaurant is living off of the appetizers, the desserts and the wines. And I think that the crane business is exactly the same as that. I mean, obviously, you got to have a crane to be in the lifting business, but there's a lot of accessories that go around that product and really add value to our business and to our customers. And I think what really brings it all home is great service. And a great example of that recently, we got an order in France for 7 tower cranes. That was for EUR 6.5 million. But on the back of that, the sales team was able to add the commissioning and dismantling services for [ 900,000 ] and then several accessories for a total of [ 300,000 ]. So on top of your normal crane order, they added anti-intrusion panels, lighting, cameras, anticollision software, aircraft warning systems and lifts. So I think to me, that's a great example of what the team can add when they really start to think outside of the box and have a bigger view of the customer and how we service those customers. So hopefully, that's a little color that helps.

We received another e-mail. What are your orders in April?

Yes. So Aaron mentioned that the orders were strong. We're still rolling up the numbers, but we expect between $225 million and $250 million of orders in April, which is good, a little bit higher than the run rate we saw in Q1.

Okay. I just received this e-mail. You seem more optimistic on this call. And how do we think about the full year guidance?

Yes. So we reaffirmed our guidance, but you look at it, orders have been strong. April, as Brian just said, is looking good. Backlog is strong. Dealer inventory is on the low end in the United States and really starting to see some momentum in places like South Korea. So I think there's a lot of optimism out there, a lot of opportunity. I think the big question mark is just how the Strait of Hormuz situation plays out because we still have plenty of orders that need to make their way into the Middle East through that Strait. And as of right now, it's shut down. So I think there's some good opportunities, but still there's some uncertainty there in terms of our ability to execute within the year, depending on how that situation plays out.

I received another e-mail, and I would just read it to you. How is the implementation of the Manitowoc Way lean practices impacting the aftermarket business?

Yes. So I mean, traditionally, we're manufacturing folks. So we're still sort of figuring it out. And I think we're in the early innings, but we're starting to see some good gains. I think when you look at what we did in terms of our new hires of field service folks during the quarter, that's a good example of how we're gaining. So we continue to sort of tweak how our approach to recruiting and how we manage the organization. I think it looks like we found the right formula. I think that's a real success of us trying to continuously do a better job and be more effective at it. We've got some good kaizens going this year that are more than just sort of the weak kaizen. It will take us a few weeks to work through those. We do predelivery inspections at our dealerships. We've never really gotten good feedback. There's a lot of fixes that happen that people just don't report. So we built a system around that to start to get feedback closer to our -- to the assemblers and [indiscernible]. I think that's going to yield good results for us. In our Jeffersonville distribution center, this is where we typically ship out parts, but there's a lot of kits that go with oncore work and upfit and some bigger projects. I can best describe that as a terrible IKEA project at the moment. So a lot of work for us to do and improve in terms of kitting because when we do that, there's going to be a significant productivity gain at our service centers when they're doing that work because it's hard to figure out all the different nuts and bolts and parts that are in some of these boxes. So I think that's great. And a big shout out to our team in Chesapeake, and Meghan Gowder, she's done a fantastic job. She was a Manitowoc Way winner last year for improvements. And in the first quarter, she put forward improvement around using QR codes to manage TPM on forklift. So I just love the amount of creativity we have in those locations. To me, the big challenge and why I see we're in the early innings is just around how we collaborate and we share all these lessons learned. So it's a lot of cats to herd in all these different locations, but we're gaining speed. So I'm really looking forward to what we're able to do as we move forward.

Thank you. Those are the questions that we received in the queue. Operator, any other questions in the queue?

No, sir. There is nothing at present.

Okay. Very well. Please note that a replay of our first quarter 2026 earnings call will be available later this morning by accessing the Investor Relations section of our website at www.manitowoc.com. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your continued interest in The Manitowoc Company. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter.

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.