STERIS Q4 2025 Earnings Report

STERIS EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.74
• Consensus EPS: $2.59
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.15
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.58

STERIS Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.48 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.47 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$13.93 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +5.70%

STERIS Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 5/14/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 15, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

STERIS (NYSE:STE) provides infection prevention products and services worldwide. It operates through four segments: Healthcare, Applied Sterilization Technologies, Life Sciences, and Dental. The Healthcare segment offers cleaning chemistries and sterility assurance products; automated endoscope reprocessing system and tracking products; endoscopy accessories, washers, sterilizers, and other pieces of capital equipment for the operation of a sterile processing department; and equipment used directly in the operating room, including surgical tables, lights, and connectivity solutions, as well as equipment management services. It also provides capital equipment installation, maintenance, upgradation, repair, and troubleshooting services; preventive maintenance programs and repair services; instrument and endoscope repair and maintenance services; and custom process improvement consulting and outsourced instrument sterile processing services. The Applied Sterilization Technologies segment provides contract sterilization and testing services for medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers through a network of approximately 50 contract sterilization and laboratory facilities. The Life Sciences segment designs, manufactures and sells consumable products, such as formulated cleaning chemistries, barrier, sterility assurance products, steam and vaporized hydrogen peroxide sterilizers, and washer disinfectors. This segment also offers equipment installation, maintenance, upgradation, repair, and troubleshooting services; and preventive maintenance programs and repair services. The Dental segment provides hand and electric-powered dental instruments, infection control products, conscious sedation, personal protective equipment, and water quality products for dental suite. The company serves its products and services to hospitals, other healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company was founded in 1985 and is based in Dublin, Ireland.

STERIS Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Q4 revenue grew 4% as reported and 6% constant currency organic, with gross margin up 170 bps to 44.3% and adjusted EPS from continuing operations rising 14% to $2.74.
• Full-year fiscal 2025 revenue rose 6% with 12% earnings growth (adjusted EPS $9.22), driven by strong recurring streams in Healthcare (+6% organic), AST (+9%), and improved margins across all segments.
• Record free cash flow of $787 million enabled debt reduction to $2 billion (1.4× gross debt/EBITDA), following $370 million in capital expenditures and $476 million in depreciation and amortization.
• Fiscal 2026 outlook calls for 6–7% revenue growth (200 bps price) and 7–10% EPS growth to $9.90–$10.15, with EBIT margin expansion of ~20 bps and a 23.5% tax rate.
• Tariffs are expected to cost $30 million in FY 2026 (about half from China and half from the 10% global levy), with supply-chain mitigation efforts planned to partially offset the impact.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the STERIS PLC Fourth Quarter twenty twenty five Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touchdown phones.

[Operator]

To withdraw your questions, you may press and 2. Note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Julie Winter, Investor Relations. Ma'am, please go ahead.

[Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at STERIS]

Thank you, Jamie, and good morning, everyone. As usual, speaking on today's call will be Mike Tokich, our Senior Vice President and CFO and Dan Carrestio, our President and CEO. And I do have a few words of caution before we open for comments. This webcast contains time sensitive information that is accurate only as of today. Any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call without the expressed written consent of STERIS is strictly prohibited.

[Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at STERIS]

Some of the statements made during this review are or may be considered forward looking statements. Many important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements, including, without limitation, those risk factors described in Steris' securities filings. The company does not undertake to update or revise any forward looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments. Steris' SEC filings are available through the company and on our website. In addition, on today's call, GAAP financial measures, including adjusted earnings per diluted share, adjusted operating income, constant currency organic revenue growth and free cash

[Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at STERIS]

flow

[Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at STERIS]

will be used. Additional information regarding these measures, including definitions, is available in our release as well as reconciliations between GAAP and non GAAP financial measures. Non GAAP financial measures are presented during this call with the intent of providing greater transparency to supplemental financial information used by management and the Board of Directors in their financial analysis and operational decision making. With those cautions, I will hand the call over to Mike.

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

Thank you, Julie, good morning, everyone. It is once again my pleasure to be with you this morning to review the highlights of our fourth quarter performance from continuing operations. For the fourth quarter, total as reported revenue grew 4%, constant currency organic revenue grew 6% in the quarter driven by volume as well as two ten basis points of price. Gross margin for the quarter increased 170 basis points compared with the prior year to 44.3%. Positive price, favorable mix and productivity outpaced labor inflation.

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

EBIT margin increased 110 basis points to 24.8% of revenue compared with last year. The adjusted effective tax rate in the quarter was 23.5%. The year over year increase was driven by unfavorable discrete item adjustments. Net income from continuing operations in the quarter was $270,000,000 Adjusted earnings per diluted share from continuing operations was $2.74 a 14% increase over the prior year. We are pleased with our ability to grow earnings double digits all year with lower interest expense following the divestiture of the Dental segment.

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

Capital expenditures for fiscal twenty twenty five totaled $370,000,000 while depreciation and amortization totaled $476,000,000 We continue to pay down debt during the quarter ending with $2,000,000,000 in total debt. Gross debt to EBITDA at quarter end was approximately 1.4 times. Free cash flow for fiscal twenty twenty five was a record $787,000,000 well above our full year guidance driven by significant working capital improvements, in particular inventory. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dan for his remarks.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to hear more about our fiscal twenty twenty five performance and our outlook for fiscal twenty twenty six. Mike covered the quarter, so I will touch on our performance for the full year and our outlook for fiscal twenty twenty six. From a total company perspective, we ended the year with 6% revenue growth and 12% earnings growth. The diversified nature of our business allowed us to deliver results in line with our original outlook despite a few obstacles during the year.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Looking at our segments, Healthcare constant currency organic revenue grew 6% for the year, led by strong recurring revenue streams. Our outperformance in consumables and services continues to be driven by procedure volumes in The U. S. As well as price and market share gains. Healthcare capital equipment equipment revenue declined 5% for the year against our record year last year.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Capital equipment orders grew over 12% for the full year as underlying demand remained strong. Margins improved nicely in Healthcare, hitting the 25% mark for the year with volume, pricing and positive productivity offsetting labor inflation. Towards the end of the year, we also began to benefit from the restructuring cost savings, capturing approximately $5,000,000 in savings in the fourth quarter of fiscal twenty twenty five. Turning to AST. Constant currency organic revenue grew 9% for the year with 7% growth in services.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Med device customers remained stable, while bioprocessing was a bit lumpy during the year. Capital equipment shipments more than doubled compared to the prior year and exceeded our expectations. EBIT margins for AST were 44.8%, down slightly year over year as we continue to face energy and labor headwinds and had a negative mix shift from capital equipment shipments. Constant currency organic revenue increased 1% for Life Sciences for the full year, driven once again by strong growth in consumables and services offset by a decline in capital equipment revenue. Margins increased to 42.3%, a three sixty basis point improvement benefiting from favorable mix, pricing and the divestiture of the CECS business.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

From an earnings perspective, we ended the year strong and exceeded our revised outlook with adjusted EPS of $9.22 The upside to our estimates was driven by lower corporate spending and improved profitability in both Healthcare and the Life Science segments. Turning to our outlook for fiscal twenty twenty six. As noted in the press release, we anticipate as reported revenue from continuing operations to grow 6% to 7% in fiscal twenty twenty six. We do not have any acquisition or divestiture impacts heading into the new fiscal year and changes in foreign currency are expected to be neutral to STERIS. As a result, constant currency organic revenue growth is also expected to grow 6% to 7%.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Included in this outlook is approximately 200 basis points of price. Each segment is expected to grow revenue in the range of 6% to 7% for fiscal twenty twenty six. '1 minor note on AST revenue growth. Our outlook reflects high single digit growth in services revenue, which will be somewhat offset by a decline in capital equipment to get to the 6% to 7% growth total for the year. As you saw in the press release, we have estimated the impact for tariffs for fiscal twenty twenty six, which are reflected in our outlook.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

We manufacture a significant number of products in North America for use in The U. S. With about 85% of the products sold in The U. S. Coming from North American manufacturing.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

This significantly reduces our tariff exposure compared to many others, but we are not immune to the impact of tariffs. Our fiscal twenty twenty six outlook of 9.9 to $10.15 includes $30,000,000 of tariff costs. The EPS range implies 7% to 10% growth in earnings, including tariffs, which is impressive performance. I want to take a moment to thank our supply chain and commercial teams for all their efforts on this front. The anticipated tariff impact is a net number.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

We do expect to leverage the strength of Steris to mitigate some of our exposure. The $30,000,000 estimate is based on global tariffs currently in effect, including the 10% global tariff and the recently announced 90 trade deal with China. For your modeling purposes, at the high end of our earnings range, we would expect EBIT margins to increase approximately 20 basis points, reflecting our ability to offset tariffs. The effective tax rate is planned at approximately 23.5%. As we enter into the new fiscal year, we are well positioned to deliver both top and bottom line growth in 2026.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

That concludes our prepared remarks for the call. Julie, would you please give the instructions so that we can begin the Q and A?

[Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at STERIS]

Thank you, Mike and Dan, for your comments. Jamie, can you please give the instructions for Q and A and we'll get started.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin that question and answer To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touch tone phones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. To withdraw your questions, you may press and two. And our first question today comes from Dave Turkaly from Citizens. Please go ahead with your question.

[David Turkaly, Research Analyst at Citizen JMP]

Hey, good morning and congrats on the quarter and the year. I guess we're looking at the segments, the biggest implied deltas and then that LifeSci and I was just curious to get some color on your comfort in that kind of bouncing back to that 6% to seven percent range.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Yes. We did extremely well this year in our recurring revenues, especially our chemistries and consumables business. So we would expect that to continue. Where we were down significantly was obviously capital equipment with a lot of uncertainty in pharma, the orders just dried up in the first half of the year. However, we saw a really strong rebound late in the year and we are coming into fiscal twenty twenty six with a pretty good backlog and a pretty good rate of orders.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

So we're confident that we'll be able to deliver the bulk of those in fiscal twenty twenty six and continue on with the growth that we've seen historically within

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

our consumables business.

[David Turkaly, Research Analyst at Citizen JMP]

Great. One quick follow-up. It seems like the tariff impact might be, I don't know,

[David Turkaly, Research Analyst at Citizen JMP]

two four or something like that on the EPS line, Yet you're still getting into a double digit range at the high end. I guess if you could just talk about some of the puts and takes maybe even on the interest expense. I know you delevered a bunch, but to get to that even despite the tariffs, just maybe some color there?

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

Yes, Dave, this is Mike. So, as normal, there's quite a bit of headwinds or tailwinds or puts and takes. First and foremost, we are going to benefit from about $20,000,000 of restructuring cost savings that will be in FY 2026. So that's a good guide. In addition to that, we do not anticipate spending $20 plus million in ETO litigation.

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

We anticipate spending about $5,000,000 So there's $15,000,000 to the good also. But offsetting that is incentive comp getting back to 100% bonus that is a negative $15,000,000 Obviously, the tariffs are another negative $15,000,000 And then if you look at our lower interest expense is really going to offset our higher tax rate. So that's just a reconciliation for FY 2026 of the puts and takes.

[David Turkaly, Research Analyst at Citizen JMP]

Thank you. You're welcome.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mike Matson from Needham and Company. Please go ahead with your question.

[Mike Matson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

Yes. Thanks. So just your your cash flow guidance is a little bit down from from 25,000,000 I know you called out the working capital improvement you saw 25,000,000 I mean, that the main kind of differential between the two years?

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

The big thing, Mike, is we anticipate paying $40,000,000 legal settlement for ETO, which is in FY 2026. So that's going to negatively impact cash by $40,000,000 And of course, we are not anticipating to overachieve or reduce inventory as dramatically as we had in FY 2025. But the big difference is the ETO legal fees plus the impact of tariffs will negatively impact free cash flow also.

[Mike Matson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay, got it. And then just your leverage ratio is down quite a bit. So just maybe you can give us an update on M and A, I'd expect you'd probably be looking to do some more deals if you can find things, but.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Yes, I mean this is Dan. What I would say, Mike, is that we have the capacity both from a financial perspective and from an intellectual perspective at this point having not done any meaningful M and A now for a few years. So if the right opportunity presents itself, we'll be involved.

[Mike Matson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Patrick Wood from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead with your question.

[Patrick Wood, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Awesome. Thanks, Sigman. Just two quick ones. It's probably too early to say, but how the conversations with the customers been around potentially like onshoring back to The U. S?

[Patrick Wood, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

I'm trying to think of I know some of the outsourced contract manufacturers have seen like a big pickup in people trying to pull production back. I'm just curious, is that something that you think is actually going to happen? Or is it more just a nice bullet point on a McKinsey slide?

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

It's probably the latter. But I do think there is some opportunities. I assume you're talking about medtech in particular, but I do think there are some opportunities. Many of those large companies have manufacturing for local regions. And to the extent that they may be manufacturing in Europe for The U.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

S. And they have U. S.-based manufacturing for similar products, you may see some shift of volumes going east or west depending on the benefit that they can do in terms of tariff and how easy it is to do it. Keep in mind, highly regulated industry, it's not easy to move production volumes if they don't have all the regulatory permits and things like that. So it takes time.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

But there'll be some fluidity to it, I'm sure.

[Patrick Wood, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

That's awesome. And then just like quickly around the kind of that M and A angle again. What have you been hearing from some of the smaller players, niche out compliance costs, all those sorts of things. Is there a situation where I know your capacity is tight, but is there a situation where they end up having to force sell themselves essentially to you guys or your peers? Like how do you think about industry consolidation on the back of the kind of one off costs there?

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

I mean, in a general sense, I do think there'll be some industry consolidation, but we'd be in a much better position greenfielding than we would be buying assets that are 30 years old.

[Patrick Wood, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

I mean, I'm 40, so I take offense to that. But thanks guys.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Well, you've been compliant your whole life.

[Patrick Wood, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

That's definitely not true.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Matt Eitok from Stephens Inc. Please go ahead with your question.

[Mac Etoch, Senior Research Associate at Stephens Inc]

Hey, good morning. I'll add my congrats on the quarter and the year as well. Maybe just touching on the outlook for FY 2026. You commented on AST kind of coming in line 6% to 7% growth for the year, low single digits for capital equipment, high single digits for services. But can you flush out what you're seeing within the respective customer bases there?

[Mac Etoch, Senior Research Associate at Stephens Inc]

I think there's a little bit of a delta between what maybe I and the Street were expecting versus your internal expectations. So if you could just provide us a little color there, that'd be great.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Yes. I think what we're doing here is we've seen a lot of just movement, month to month, quarter to quarter in terms of volume. It has started to sort of modulate down. But our view is let's take a little more conservative approach on how aggressively some of the bioprocessing is going to recover and also as customers reassess where they're manufacturing and if there is any movement going on and what implications that may have on total volume.

[Mac Etoch, Senior Research Associate at Stephens Inc]

Got it. And then just in light of like the current macro and everything that's going on with general policies, how are conversations progressing with clients? Have there been any change in behaviors relating to life sciences or the AST segment?

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Nothing that I would point to. There's a number of discussions, but I can't say there's anything concrete.

[Mac Etoch, Senior Research Associate at Stephens Inc]

Thank you for taking my questions. Appreciate it.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Sure thing.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Michael Polark from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead with your question.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC]

Hey, good morning. Maybe two on healthcare. The first one, the allusion to market share gains driving growth in the fiscal year and quarter. I know we've talked about this before, but is there any service or business line that really stands out to you there as to Stereus doing way better than market? If so, what is it?

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC]

And what's going right?

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Honestly, I would say it's just across the entire segment right now. Our teams are just doing a phenomenal job, in particular in the North American markets that we're just we've just built out such a great portfolio and enterprise solution for large systems around sterile processing in particular and all the services that go along with that, that we continue to do really well.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC]

And for the fiscal year ahead, 6% to 7% growth for the Healthcare segment, would you call out any expected variances between how consumables, services and equipment should grow in 2026?

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

No, we're not going to provide that level of granularity. I will hit back on the fact that we had a great order year for that bodes well in terms of backlog for capital going into next year. And so we're optimistic about that.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jason Bednar from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead with your question.

[Jason Bednar, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Hey, good morning everyone. Nice finish to the year here. Wanted to see if we could spend just maybe a bit more time on tariffs, really topical for all companies here this quarter. Maybe break down if you could what that $30,000,000 looks like across your network. I think it's I know you had $30,000,000 in the press release.

[Jason Bednar, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Mike, I think you made just some comment at one point, I think, very early on around $15,000,000 But just want to confirm it's $30,000,000 net. And then if possible, break down maybe again how much exposure you have here around like China related tariffs and then how much on the non China side? It would just be helpful so we can update our own thinking as we see the next updates on the tariff front.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

I mean, is Dan. I'll let Mike add to this. But at a high level, it's about half China and half sort of the 10% global tariff and it's about $30,000,000

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

No more to add on that.

[Jason Bednar, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

All right. I like it. And I think you said that $30,000,000 again, is a net number. Are you assuming any mitigation actions in that $30,000,000 figure? Kind of what does that the pacing of that activity look like throughout fiscal twenty twenty six?

[Jason Bednar, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

And then, I'll just sneak in one extra here. It looks like share repo was a little lighter in the fourth quarter, compared to the prior few quarters, but the stock's been hanging around a similar level now for some time, well off its highs. Maybe just talk about the decision to pause some of that activity and is there a signal we should draw from that pause?

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

Yes, I would say that in general, had bought about $200,000,000 of shares during FY 2025. We had bought those earlier in the year compared to the previous year. I would say there's no signal that we're driving there. It is almost double what we've typically bought just to offset dilution. And obviously, with our debt levels and debt ratios being where they are, we would definitely consider doing additional share buybacks beyond our offsetting just offsetting dilution in the future.

[Jason Bednar, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

Sorry, on the mitigation activity on tariffs?

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

Yes, the $30,000,000 is a net number, Jason. So it's significantly higher than that. Obviously, there's a lot to be done to mitigate. Timing is always the question. Obviously, our supply chain guys and girls are working very hard to offset as much as possible.

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

But yes, it's a net number of 30 and we anticipate that that will hit us about equally throughout the calendar year.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

I would just add to that. With the ninety day pause or sort of redirect on the China tariff, it gives us an opportunity to be much more strategic and thoughtful in terms of, anything that we're changing as it relates to either vendors or manufacturing location or supply. So, I would expect more weight on the back end.

[Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at STERIS]

And also, don't think we've said there's more weight on health care. They're primarily impacting the health care segment with a little bit in life sciences.

[Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO at STERIS]

And very, very little, if any, in AST.

[Jason Bednar, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies]

All right. Very good. Thank you everyone.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

You're welcome.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Please go ahead with your question.

[Brett Fishbin, Vice President & Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Hey, guys. Thank you very much for taking the questions and good morning. Just wanted to ask another question on health care capital equipment. It sounds like you're not trying to give specific guidance on growth, but maybe just talk a little bit more about the capital equipment backdrop. You're exiting the year with some growth in the backlog, but really just curious how some of the recent macro developments have impacted like either ordering patterns or like hospitals' willingness to do implementations versus like any deferrals you may be seeing?

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

We've talked about this a lot in the past and that is the capital equipment that we offer is really more of a utility than a luxury item. If you're going to see procedural growth and migration of procedures to different places, you can't accommodate that growth without having sterile processing capacity or surgical suites. So at times when it may impact replacement business, if those things can be deferred, doesn't really impact the new equipment in terms of going into expansion. So, we had a great order year last year, growing orders 12%. We've got our backlog into a very comfortable position.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

We haven't seen anything at this point that would indicate that that's slowing for us. And in fact, had really good volume in terms of orders going into the Q1. So we're excited about the opportunity there.

[Brett Fishbin, Vice President & Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

And then just as a follow-up, I'm going to switch gears a little bit to AST. I think it was a pretty good sequential progression in FY twenty twenty five from an AST growth standpoint. Just looking at FY twenty twenty six, for services, it sounds like high single digits is kind of the starting point. I'm just curious if like demand were to be higher than expected, do you have enough capacity to theoretically return to double digit growth in AST service? Or is capacity starting to become like a little bit of a limiting factor?

[Brett Fishbin, Vice President & Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Thank you very much.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Sure. It's not a governor for us right now. We are well positioned to accommodate the industry's growth.

[Operator]

And our next question is a follow-up from Michael Polarc from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC]

Thank you. Just one more also on AST. As you reflect on fiscal twenty twenty five in the services line, the December was up 10%, March quarter up 6%. Dan, it sounds like bioprocess is a little lumpy. Is that the gyration or anything else to kind of spike out on the phasing of the last twelve months that makes more sense to you?

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC]

My one other idea is any evidence that there was kind of front loading of inventory building ahead of the Trump tariff era in the December? Could that have been an influence in that period? Any other color would be great. Thank you.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

Sure. Yes, no, we did not see that in terms of anybody front loading tariff. I think you're giving the industry way too much credit, to be able to see that coming. What I would say is we had a phenomenal December, an extraordinary December in terms of year over year comps. And then nobody showed up for the first seven days of January.

[Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director at STERIS]

So, just the plant restarts from a customer perspective was very abnormally slow this year, one day shorter of February in terms of processing days. And then we had a wonderful February and March in terms of growth. So but overall, those things impacted the quarter. I don't think it was any more than that.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC]

Thank you.

[Operator]

And ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

[Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at STERIS]

Thanks everybody for taking the time to join us this morning and we look forward to catching up with many of you in the coming weeks.

[Operator]

And with that ladies and gentlemen, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Participants

Executives

• Julie Winter, Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
• Michael Tokich, Senior VP & CFO
• Daniel Carestio, President, CEO & Director

Analysts

• David Turkaly, Research Analyst at Citizen JMP
• Mike Matson, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Needham & Company
• Patrick Wood, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• Mac Etoch, Senior Research Associate at Stephens Inc
• Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wolfe Research LLC
• Jason Bednar, Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies
• Brett Fishbin, Vice President & Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets