Ampco-Pittsburgh Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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May 12, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Air & Liquid Processing had a standout quarter, with revenue up 17% and adjusted EBITDA up 52% to a record level, driven by strong demand, better manufacturing efficiency, and favorable product mix.
  • Positive Sentiment: Customer orders in Air & Liquid reached record levels, with backlog up 19% in the quarter and management pointing to continued strength from data centers, nuclear, U.S. Navy, and pharmaceutical demand.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Consolidated Q1 adjusted EBITDA fell to $8 million from $8.8 million a year ago, mainly because of temporary ramp-up costs in Sweden and weaker mix in the Forged and Cast Engineered Products segment.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management said the Forged and Cast business is seeing improving order trends, with large-roll orders recovering in Q2, stronger work-roll demand in Q2 and Q3, and benefits from tariff normalization and market consolidation.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company expects debt reduction this year, targeting roughly $8 million to $10 million, supported by positive cash flow, and reiterated an annual EBITDA improvement of $7 million to $8 million from actions taken in 2025.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Ampco-Pittsburgh Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Speaker 6

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Miss Kim Knox. Miss Knox, the floor is yours, ma'am.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Mike, and good morning to everyone joining us on today's first quarter 2026 conference call. Joining me today are Brett McBrayer, our Chief Executive Officer, and David Anderson, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air & Liquid Systems Corporation. Also joining us on the call today is Sam Lyon, President of Union Electric Steel Corporation. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that participants on this call may make statements or comments that are forward-looking and may include financial projections or other statements of the corporation's plans, objectives, expectations, or intentions. These matters involve certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside the corporation's control.

Speaker 5

The corporation's actual results may differ significantly from those projected or suggested in any forward-looking statements due to various risk factors, including those discussed in the corporation's most recently filed Form 10-K and in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any obligation to update or otherwise release publicly any revision to our forward-looking statements. A replay of this call will be posted on our website later today. To access the earnings release or the webcast replay, please consult the investor section of our website at ampco-pittsburgh.com. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Brett McBrayer, Ampco-Pittsburgh's CEO. Brett?

Operator

Thank you, Kim. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. As reported in our press release, consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $8 million, down from $8.8 million the prior year. Our results reflect ramp-up costs in Sweden as well as a weaker mix in our forged and cast engineered products segment. We see ongoing progress in this segment following the 2025 slowdown, with trends stabilizing as the business moves through a normalization in volumes and mix. With strong demand continuing in our Air and Liquid Processing segment, ALP achieved record adjusted EBITDA and record customer orders for the first quarter of 2026. To elaborate further on this performance, I will now turn the call over to David Anderson, Chief Financial Officer and President of our Air and Liquid segment.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brett. Good morning. Tremendous start to the year for Air and Liquid as ALP set new records in customer orders and adjusted EBITDA. Q1 revenue increased 17%, driven by higher revenue in all product lines. Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 increased 52% versus prior year as higher revenue, improved manufacturing efficiencies, and positive product mix drove adjusted EBITDA to the highest level in Air and Liquid's history. Backlog increased $23.5 million or 19% in the quarter as customer orders increased to record levels. Customer orders were 40% higher than any prior quarter as we continue to see extremely strong demand for our custom-engineered products across multiple markets. Data centers are causing increasing demand in the power generation market, which is fueling demand in both our commercial pump and nuclear heat exchanger products.

Speaker 2

Our commercial pumps are used in gas turbines, which are seeing strong growth, while we continue to be the dominant supplier of heat exchangers into the growing nuclear market. There continues to be strong demand from the U.S. Navy, and we expect this demand to continue as the Navy moves forward with fleet expansion plans. The manufacturing equipment installed in 2024 has already increased manufacturing capacity for our pump product line, and there is more capacity expansion in process. Additional manufacturing equipment from the Navy funding program arrived at our facility in early 2026 and is expected to begin producing products in the second quarter of 2026. There is additional equipment from the Navy funding program that is expected to arrive at our facility in the second half of this year. This equipment will position us to meet the long-term growth in this market.

Speaker 2

Demand for custom air handlers remains strong as there continues to be significant demand in the pharmaceutical market for our custom air handling products. With rising market demand and an increasing backlog, we continue to focus on increasing our manufacturing capacity. We are bringing in new equipment, increasing our headcount, and improving our manufacturing efficiencies in order to meet the increasing demand. In summary, 2026 is off to a great start, and we are well-positioned in markets that are showing significant long-term growth.

Operator

Thank you, David. Sam Lyon, President of Forged and Cast Engineered Products segment, will now share more details regarding his group's performance. Sam?

Speaker 7

Thank you, Brett, and good morning, everyone. For the first quarter of 2026, the Forged and Cast Engineered Products segment reported net sales of $70.8 million compared to $72.3 million in Q1 of 2025. Sales were relatively flat, with Sweden and Slovenia mostly offsetting the loss from the closure of the U.K. and our distribution business, AUP. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $5.7 million, up from $2.3 million in Q4, and down from $8.3 million in the prior year period. Three discrete timing items shaped Q1 results. First, to gain a competitive advantage with some European customers, we offer a blend of rolls from our Swedish plant and our joint venture in China. Due to uneven shipments in Q1, we had a less profitable mix, which will reverse in the coming quarters.

Speaker 7

Second, our lower shipments of higher margin large rolls in the U.S. negatively affected the mix. Tariff uncertainty led many of our customers to defer orders for our highest margin product in Q4 of 2025 and Q1 of 2026. Third, higher cost inventory from Q4 of 2025 flowed through the P&L. This higher cost was driven by production downtime in Q4 due to a softer order book resulting from tariff uncertainty. The forward-looking picture is much more constructive. The U.S. order book for large rolls has recovered in Q2. The work roll order book is also higher in Q2 and Q3. FEP demand and margins are improved, supported by the tariff landscape. As a result of these factors, we expect the remainder of the year to be stronger.

Speaker 7

With the increased demand, the only planned outages are the yearly maintenance in the U.S. around the Fourth of July and the typical summer holidays in Europe. In our last earnings call, I mentioned that two of our competitors were exiting the market. Marichal Ketin, MKB, a cast roll manufacturer in Europe, is in receivership, and a competitor in South America has exited the cast roll market at the end of 2025 and is currently exiting the forge roll market. This market consolidation is presenting us with opportunities to gain market share. In summary, the underlying demand for our products is improving, supported by the tariff landscape, infrastructure growth, consolidation of roll manufacturers, and reshoring. We are also realizing improvements in our Sweden operation due to higher utilization. We are optimistic for the remainder of 2026 and 2027. Brett, back to you.

Operator

Thanks, Sam. I'll now turn the call back over to David Anderson, our Chief Financial Officer, for more detail regarding our financial performance for the quarter. Dave?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brett. As indicated in both our Form 10-Q and in our press release, Ampco-Pittsburgh reported Q1 net sales of $108.3 million, which was an increase of 3.9% versus prior year. As discussed in the segment reports, Air and Liquid saw a significant sales increase versus prior year, while FCEP was relatively flat. Q1 adjusted EBITDA of $8 million was $0.8 million lower than prior year. The lower adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the temporary timing issues that Sam discussed. These issues were largely offset by the increase in adjusted EBITDA for the ALP segment. Backlog increased 5%, primarily driven by the record order activity in the ALP segment.

Speaker 2

Total selling and administrative expenses were relatively flat compared to prior year, as higher sales commissions and other costs were offset by the elimination of SG&A expenses due to the closures of the U.K. facility and the small steel distribution business in the U.S. Depreciation and amortization expense was lower by approximately $400,000 due to the closure of the U.K. facility and the steel distribution business. The change in other income and expense was primarily due to lower net pension and other post-retirement income, which is principally attributable to the U.S. defined benefit plan reaching a fully funded status in early 2026, resulting in a change in its investment strategies to a more conservative portfolio.

Speaker 2

At March 31, 2026, the corporation's liquidity position included cash on hand of $9.2 million and undrawn availability on our revolving credit facility of $30.8 million. In summary, while there were some short-term timing issues in Q1, there were a number of positives that position us for the rest of the year, including our liquidity position, the fully funded defined benefit plan, and the positive impact from the U.K. plant closure in late 2025. Operator, at this time, we would now like to open the line for questions.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. At this time, we will just pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question we have will come from Bruce Galloway of Galloway. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Hey, guys. How you doing? It looks like it was a pretty good quarter. A few hiccups over there. Couple of questions. Number 1, you know, back in March, you stated that the order book was up 38% and Air and Liquid was up 73%. At the end of the quarter, you know, the numbers were a little muted from there. Maybe you could explain that. My second question is, you know, you had a lot of adjustments and a lot of, you know, restructuring costs that occurred in the fourth quarter and carried on into the first quarter. What's the total amount of all that as far as EBITDA goes?

Speaker 2

Hi, Bruce. It's Dave. I can address your first question on the orders, it's a little bit of comparing two different things. Order book certainly up for the quarter, in what we just presented, we were comparing sequentially to the fourth quarter. The press releases we had earlier in the year were comparing to prior year at the same time. A little apples and oranges there, all positive, all going in a good direction.

Speaker 1

Okay, great.

Speaker 2

Your question on adjusted EBITDA, Bruce?

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah. You said you had a lot of adjustments, you know, ramping up Sweden, moving, you know, stuff to the, you know, out of U.K., you know, the pension defined plan. You know, how much of the extraordinary expenses were there? What does that translate to non-recurring as far as EBITDA goes?

Speaker 2

I think the biggest part is forged and cast where you can see the results at the Q1 versus prior year, and our expectation is we will be going up over those numbers. If that was really in the FCEP section. I think that difference is the timing issues that we were talking about. That's the primary difference, and that's what we see reversing out as we go into the next quarters.

Speaker 1

How much was that? Could you quantify? Was it $3 million in EBITDA? $2 million?

Speaker 2

Closer to three.

Speaker 1

How much did it cost?

Speaker 2

So.

Speaker 1

Okay. Closer to $3 million. Kind of like on a normalized basis, you pretty much made $8 million for the quarter.

Speaker 2

Correct.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I guess for Well, we made $8, for FCEP it would have been closer to $8.

Speaker 1

No, 11.

Speaker 7

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Eleven.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1

It would have been closer to 11.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Correct. Correct. Correct.

Speaker 1

Yep.

Speaker 7

Just, just to comment, Bruce, this is Sam. That timing issue between the blended shipments that we sell to European customers, that is purely timing. It'll just reverse out in the next several quarters. The overhead that we carried into the year, that's all pretty well gone as well. As I said, the outlook, particularly in North America, is quite constructive from our customers. If you look at any of their earnings calls, their volumes are all going up and we're seeing that as well. You know, We feel like, as Brad said, we've kind of come through the trough at this point.

Speaker 1

Okay. Also, are you getting any tariff money back?

Speaker 7

Well, if we do, it'll go right back to our customers.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 7

Every tariff that we had to pay, we had a line item that went to them, so. Yes, we should. That's a positive too, because the way that the tariffs are going forward, we'll probably pay about half as much as we would have paid, which is just better for borrowing and our ABL.

Speaker 1

Okay. How much business were you doing in the U.K., and how much of that total amount switched over to Sweden?

Speaker 7

We were doing, at the end of last year, probably $30 million or so annualized in 2025, and half of that or so would go to Sweden, half to two-thirds.

Speaker 1

Okay. On the revenue bar, you're not really comparing apples to apples. You have a basically a discontinued operation in there, which cost you about $15 million in revenues, but obviously is helping you on the EBITDA line. Are you still on track to pick up about $9 million in savings from the closure of the U.K. facility?

Speaker 7

We've always said seven to eight, but yes, we're still on track.

Speaker 1

7 to 8. Okay. 7 to 8. Okay, great. Okay.

Speaker 7

Thank you, Bruce.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Hey, the next question we have will come from John Baer of Ascend Wealth Advisors.

Speaker 3

Good morning, all.

Speaker 2

Hey, good morning, John.

Speaker 3

Glad you can hear me. A couple of questions here. Number 1, now that you seem to have hit an inflection point, what are your thoughts on debt reduction overall? That's question 1. Then I've got a couple additionals that I'd like to ask.

Speaker 2

Hi, John. Hi, John, it's Dave. I can answer that one on debt reduction. I mean, that is one of our primary focuses as we move towards generating positive cash flow this year. We do expect debt reduction to occur as we go through this year. That's certainly one of our focuses, is improving the balance sheet on that regard.

Speaker 3

How much can you quantify or do you have a ballpark range of what you think you might be able to accomplish on that based on, you know, your order trends overall?

Speaker 2

I would think reasonable is $8 million-$10 million or something in the balance of this year.

Speaker 3

Okay. Is there any potential for any kind of refinancing that might lower your overall interest cost, or are you pretty well settled in with that?

Speaker 2

We're pretty well settled, but we always evaluate if there's a better option somewhere, but I don't really expect that right now.

Speaker 3

All right. outside of the Air and Liquid products, Navy activity and so forth, what are you seeing domestically with, you know, other aspects of the business? I know you did mention there was kind of a flattish situation with forged because of tariffs and some of the other uncertainties. You have indicated that you seem more positive in the back half of 2026.

Speaker 7

I guess, this is Sam. The large roll orders that were suppressed in Q4 and Q1, I mean, they were down probably on average 35% from normal. They've come in the next 2 quarters, it's completely recovered. That was kind of the biggest issue, and those are a little bit more capital purchase items from the customers. They have a little leeway when they buy them and when they don't buy them. You know, they held off on those. Again, we're also seeing very strong demand on the, particularly in Q3, on the forge side for work rolls. We're also currently in the midst of part of the backlog issue too, is we're currently finalizing our next year's orders with our 2 biggest customers as we speak.

Speaker 7

One of them will be done in Q2 and probably one will be done in early Q3. That this period in time is a low point. If you look every year, it is kind of a low point for our backlog for FCEP as we negotiate 2027.

Speaker 3

Is that basically just kind of wait and see with all the uncertainties that are out there economically, perhaps, that inventory's kind of been depleted, so you are entering more, a more robust, hopefully a more robust, ordering cycle and usage. In other words, are the steel company's activities picking up? Is that your sense that they're picking up enough that they feel more comfortable in, you know, ordering, say, a larger needs?

Speaker 7

Well, just it's purely they're when demand goes down, there's a lag, they're buying supplies, which rolls as a supply for a certain level of demand. As demand goes down, they have an inventory overhang. Well, now the opposite's occurring, demand is going up.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker 7

They directly have to purchase more, more rolls. The other thing, we did not have some business in 2026 because of the tariffs in Europe. People were nervous about buying stuff from the U.S. That's all gone. You know, we have those orders back in the 2027 order book as well. I think for the most part, the tariffs are all normalized, everybody's acceptable, everybody understands what they are now, and we're kind of back to a more normalized state.

Speaker 3

Do you think there's some reshoring activity that's helping boost demand?

Speaker 7

In the U.S., definitely. That's, demand's much better on the infrastructure data centers. You know, David Anderson mentioned the pharmaceutical sites that are being built. All that is, you know, uses steel.

Speaker 3

Okay. Very good. Last question. You mentioned in the prepared remarks there about two competitors exiting the market. Is that due to a softening of demand overall for them, or they just not have the volumes that could justify remaining in that market? Or maybe that's not the right word. How likely is it that you'll be able to pick up the market share that is being left behind by their exiting the market?

Speaker 7

In Europe, the European competitor, the Europe market was oversupplied, which is the main reason why we got out of the U.K. as well. That's a real positive for us there. In the South America, which they didn't announce it publicly, so I can't say who it is, but it's a non-core business for them, and they just decided it wasn't worth worth managing. On the South American competitor, that we will definitely You know, we're being called directly by customers, and we have orders that we haven't had in years, because of them going out of exiting the business. In Europe, you know, we'll compete and get our share from that as well. Yeah, that's all very positive.

Speaker 3

Okay. Very good. Thank you for taking the questions.

Speaker 7

Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3

Yep.

Speaker 6

As a reminder, if you'd like to participate in today's Q&A, please press star then one on a touch-tone phone. The next question we have will come from Justin Bergner of Gabelli Funds.

Speaker 4

Good morning, thank you for taking my question. The question about the exits of the competitors was just answered, I had one more question. Any benefit from the revised Section 232 tariffs that's material for your business?

Speaker 7

Yeah, there's 2 things, Justin. One is that cast rolls. The rolls from Sweden, those have been pretty dramatically reduced. While the tariffs didn't affect us greatly, it puts us on a more level playing field with the U.S. competitor that we have. We won't have to pay the tariff and foot the bill, that's a positive. The tariffs on the FEP product stayed in place. That's still at 50%, which is a healthy barrier. That's helping our FEP order book. You know, it's probably double what it was last year, and the margins are much better as well.

Speaker 7

I think if you look at the total picture, it's kind of landed in a good spot for us, better than it was 4 months ago.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 7

Thank you, Justin.

Speaker 6

As a final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. At this time, we'll just pause momentarily. Well, it appears that we have no further questions at this time. This concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Brett McBrayer for any closing remarks. Sir?

Operator

Thank you. In closing out today, I want to thank our employees who continue to make a positive impact each and every day. With improving market conditions and the actions taken in the second half of 2025 in our Forge and Cast Segment, we expect to recognize again an annual adjusted EBITDA improvement of $7 million-$8 million moving forward. I want to thank our board of directors and our shareholders for your continued support. Thank you for joining our call this morning.

Speaker 6

All right. Thank you, sir. To the rest of the management team, this concludes today's conference call. At this time, you may disconnect your lines. Thank you. Take care, and have a blessed day, everyone.

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