Modine Manufacturing Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 30, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Data Center revenue rose 90% year over year, with a third consecutive quarter of record order intake and a growing backlog supported by hyperscaler and neocloud customers.
  • Negative Sentiment: Data Center margins were pressured by component shortages, temporary downtime, excess labor, and unfavorable overhead absorption, contributing an estimated 450–550 basis-point margin impact in the quarter.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management expects supply availability and production volumes to improve in the second quarter, with Data Center margins returning to roughly 19%–20% and expanding further in the second half; the company reiterated its fiscal 2027 outlook of $650 million–$680 million in adjusted EBITDA.
  • Positive Sentiment: Commercial HVAC revenue increased 22%, while management is pursuing plant consolidations, pricing actions, and expanded 80/20 initiatives that are expected to drive sequential margin improvement and double-digit earnings growth this fiscal year.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The planned Performance Technologies spin-off and merger with Gentherm remains on track to close before the end of calendar 2026, subject to regulatory, shareholder, and other closing approvals.
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Earnings Conference Call
Modine Manufacturing Q1 2027
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Modine's first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star and then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Kathy Powers, Vice President, Treasurer, and Investor Relations.

Kathy Powers
VP, Treasurer, and Investor Relations at Modine

Hello and good morning. Welcome to our conference call to discuss Modine's first quarter fiscal 2027 results. I'm joined by Neil Brinker, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mick Lucareli, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The slides that we will be using with today's presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website, modine.com. On slide three of that deck is our notice regarding forward-looking statements. This call will contain forward-looking statements as outlined in our earnings release, as well as in our company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I'll turn the call over to Neil.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Thank you, Kathy, and good morning everyone. Before covering the quarterly results, I'd like to share a couple of personnel updates. As we've recently announced, Michael Mahan has joined Modine as the new president of our Commercial HVAC segment, reporting to me. We are very excited to have Michael join our team, bringing extensive experience managing global P&Ls, executing portfolio transformations, and driving product development and technical innovation. The priorities of this segment have not changed. We are focused on improving margins throughout the segment while driving organic growth and pursuing inorganic growth opportunities. We expect to create significant value in this segment through our ongoing 80/20 work and through the integration of our last three acquisitions. Michael's the right leader to help us achieve these goals.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Secondly, Art Laszlo, who has been leading our global data center business, has resigned from his role at Modine for unexpected personal reasons and will be leaving at the end of July. We are grateful for his contributions over these four years and wish him the best for his next chapter. We have initiated a search for his replacement. In the interim, I will step in to lead this organization. Given the level of growth and complexity of this business, I will be spending a great deal of my time and focus on making sure that we are executing on all of our many priorities in this segment. This includes launching and ramping production in North America to support our strategic customers and their growth targets, including ensuring that we are ready to perform on our long-term capacity commitments starting in 2027.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

This is a heavy lift, but I have confidence in our global team and our ability to delight our customers while staying at the forefront of technology. Please turn to slide four. This is the first quarter that we are reporting under our new three-segment structure: Data Centers, Commercial HVAC, and Performance Technologies. Starting with the Data Center segment, revenues increased 90% from the prior year, but were down sequentially from the previous quarter as expected. As we discussed last quarter, we began experiencing supply chain shortages of certain key components that impacted production volumes in the quarter. In response, we started taking decisive action to secure supply. Our existing suppliers are expanding capacity to meet market demand, and we are negotiating commitments to secure the volume of components we need for fiscal 2027 and beyond.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

While we regularly assess our supply chain risks, recent component shortages materialized even earlier than anticipated. We quickly activated our contingency plans, which included dynamically resequencing our capacity rollouts. Because we are actively staffing and preparing our broader network for significantly higher volume, these sudden part shortages caused temporary downtime and lower than planned capacity utilization across our expansion sites. As a result, both labor efficiency and overhead absorption were below our normal levels, which negatively impacted our margins in the quarter. The key takeaway here is that these margin pressures are a transitional timing issue, not a structural one. While these supply chain realities expand the timeline to reach full operating efficiency across our network, they do not impact our ability to meet our recently announced long-term capacity agreements or our financial targets for this year. Most importantly, the underlying demand for our products is unprecedented.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

We just logged our third consecutive quarter of record order intake, driving another significant increase in our backlog. We remain firmly focused on executing our expansion and securing critical components so that as our supply chain normalizes, our facilities are primed to effectively deliver on this massive demand. Commercially, we continue to focus on our strategic customers and perfect prospects, which include high-quality hyperscalers, neoclouds, and co-location customers, and our new product launches have been a commercial success. I spent time last week visiting our Data Center plants in North America, and I just want to reiterate my confidence in this team. As I jump in to lead this business over these next few months, my focus is ensuring that we are executing on our capacity expansion to support our strategic growth plan. I anticipate that we will have periodic challenges and setbacks with this exponential growth business.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Over the last three years, we have grown revenue at a compound annual growth rate of more than 80%. Even with temporary cost or margin headwinds, very few companies can grow earnings at these exceptionally high double-digit rates. Our visibility and confidence in revenue and earnings growth over the next two to three years remains as high as it's ever been. Please turn to slide five. Our Commercial HVAC business delivered a strong quarter with revenues up 22%. This was largely driven by our acquisition last year and higher coil sales to our Data Center customers. As I previously mentioned, Michael Mahan will be leading this next phase of the 80/20, including a renewed vertical segmentation, which will help to accelerate our acquisition integration, along with very specific targets and actions for each of our general managers.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

We are taking strategic actions to optimize our manufacturing footprint in the segment in support of our 80/20 focus and to improve our overall cost structure. Product lines are being consolidated into our Owatonna, Minnesota facility, which was part of the CDI acquisition last year. In addition, we have consolidated coils production in Grenada and Juarez in order to allow for the capacity expansion for the chiller lines of Grenada while preserving capacity for growth and coils to support our Data Center customers. Commercially, we are also taking decisive pricing actions to offset inflationary cost increases, including materials and tariffs. This, along with ongoing 80/20 focus, will help improve margins through simplification and efficiency. Please turn to page six. The Performance Technologies team continues to focus on preparations for the planned spin-off and merger with Gentherm and was able to hit several significant milestones since our last update.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Gentherm completed its S-4 submission to the SEC. Once it becomes effective, they will request approval for the transaction from their shareholders. We have also completed the filing required for an IRS determination letter on the tax treatment of the Reverse Morris Trust transaction and expect to receive a favorable ruling prior to close. Internally, we have been working on the IT separation and legal entity reorganization to allow us to deliver a standalone operating business to Gentherm. Overall, these processes remain on track, and we are still expecting to close the transaction before the end of the calendar year, presuming that all the necessary approvals are received and closing conditions are met. With that, I will turn the call over to Mick.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Thanks, Neil. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide seven to review the Q1 segment results. As Neil mentioned, this is the first quarter reporting results under the new operating segments, Data Centers, Commercial HVAC, and Performance Technologies. Please refer to the 8-K filed last week for the historic recast of our results under this new structure. Beginning with Data Centers, this segment continues to grow in an exponential rate with a 90% increase in sales. Americas sales grew 112%, and EMEA sales increased 18%, mainly from growth with strategic hyperscale and colocation customers. As we discussed last quarter, we anticipated that Q1 revenue would be up significantly year-over-year, but down sequentially from Q4. This was due to a significant impact from supply chain shortages that limited our production volume in the quarter, which ended up lasting longer than we originally anticipated.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

In addition, we also had a customer program delay and a few delayed shipments at the end of the quarter. The entire industry is continually adjusting to supply and demand changes. Despite a few challenges this quarter, the segment was able to deliver well above average earnings growth. Adjusted EBITDA grew 27%, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.8%. As expected, the adjusted EBITDA margin was down versus the prior year. This decline was due to a few temporary factors. First, there was 150 basis point warranty variance year-over-year, which was due to a large warranty settlement in the prior year. Also, as part of our production ramp to meet future customer volumes, we have added significant labor and overhead costs. The supply chain shortages caused significant inefficiencies in our plants as we ramped our labor and manufacturing capacity to handle higher volumes.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

The excess labor, along with unfavorable overhead absorption on the lower volumes, had a 450-550 basis point impact on margins during the quarter. We experienced unfavorable product mix combined with some higher material costs, partially related to supply chain shortages. These will be addressed through our commercial agreements, and we expect this will contribute to sequential margin improvement next quarter. With regards to the operating income and adjusted EBITDA margins, our rate of revenue growth is far exceeding the increase in SG&A spending, which had a positive impact on our margins. SG&A was down nearly 400 basis points as a percentage of sales. As supply chain catches up, capacity comes online, and revenue grows, we expect adjusted EBITDA margin to improve. We fully expect the segment margin will improve in Q2 and continue that trend in the second half of fiscal 2027.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Despite some periodic growing pains, we're excited about the overall momentum in the segment. Based on our revenue and margin outlook, we anticipate that the Data Center segment will generate earnings growth in excess of 85% this year. Please turn to slide eight to review the Commercial HVAC segment. Commercial HVAC also delivered strong revenue growth with a 22% increase in sales. HVAC Technologies sales increased $24 million or 45%, with acquisitions contributing $20 million of revenue in the quarter. Heat Transfer Solutions sales improved 7% or $11 million, with strong volume in North America Coils supporting data center customers. Adjusted EBITDA increased 7%, while the margin was down 220 basis points versus the prior year. Similar to the Data Center segment, we anticipated a negative margin comparison for Q1, mostly due to a temporary business mix.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

The recent acquisitions have contributed to a lower mix impact on adjusted EBITDA margin. As part of the integration plan, the team is consolidating the manufacturing footprint, and that resulted in some inefficiencies in the quarter. We also had some unfavorable revenue mix with a higher mix of lower margin coil business and a lower mix of our higher margin heating and coolers businesses. Overall, Commercial HVAC is on track for the year with great opportunities for this leadership team to drive both growth and margin expansion through new 80/20 initiatives. We're anticipating double-digit earnings growth this fiscal year with incremental improvements in adjusted EBITDA margin each quarter. Please turn to slide nine. Performance Technologies revenues remain impacted by challenging end market demand. Heavy-duty equipment sales were higher by 1% or $1 million, driven by higher genset product sales, partially offset by lower sales to off-highway agricultural equipment customers.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

On-highway application sales decreased 5% or $9 million due to lower end market demand from automotive and commercial vehicle customers. The segment adjusted EBITDA declined 3% from the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 10 basis points to 13%. The margin decline was mostly driven by lower sales volume and the lag effect of recovering higher commodity metals and tariffs. Based on the current metals trends, we do believe this situation will become more favorable in future quarters. Cost savings initiatives resulted in a $2 million reduction in SG&A expenses this quarter, helping to partially offset these impacts. Despite these challenging market conditions, the team remains focused on delivering higher margins and earnings for the segment this fiscal year. As Neil covered, the separation plan and merger with Gentherm is progressing nicely and remains on track. Now let's review the total company results. Please turn to slide 10.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

First quarter sales increased 28%, driven by the revenue growth in data centers and commercial HVAC. Gross margin declined 340 basis points to 20.8%, driven by the lower margins across all three segments. We continue to invest in incremental SG&A to support strong growth in data centers while redeploying resources across all areas of the company from an 80/20 perspective. Incremental spending has been partially offset by lower SG&A and Performance Technologies. In addition, corporate SG&A includes $7.1 million of expenses directly related to the PT spin-off, primarily for professional services to prepare for the transaction. As revenue continues to accelerate at a faster pace than SG&A, total company SG&A declined 60 basis points as a percentage of sales to 11.8%. Adjusted EBITDA grew 5%, resulting in a $5.1 million year-over-year increase.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Due to the specific items I reviewed in each segment, the adjusted EBITDA margin was down 270 basis points to 12.2%. Again, as I previously covered, I anticipated most of the change in margins. This includes working through supply chain shortages in the data center segment, along with a Q1 negative mix impact in commercial HVAC, and reflecting the low market volumes and rising costs and tariffs in PT. We believe these are all transitory, and we have very specific actions to improve margins in all three segments as the year progresses, and we remain on track to deliver our full year targets. Last but not least, from an EPS perspective, adjusted earnings per share was $1.53 or 44% higher than the prior year. This includes a favorable income tax benefit related to shares issued for stock-based incentive compensation awards during the quarter.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

However, we expect this benefit to be largely offset in the remaining quarters by other offsetting items, and our full year effective tax rate will be generally in line with our previous estimate. Now moving to the cash flow metrics. Please turn to slide 11. Free cash flow was slightly negative in the first quarter. This was lower than the prior year by $5 million, mostly due to a few factors. First, we had higher capital expenditures versus the prior year. In addition, the first quarter had over $60 million of other cash flow items, including higher contract assets related to revenue recognition, cash taxes, and incentive compensation. These were partially offset by favorable working capital improvements. Last, first quarter free cash flow included $14.9 million of cash payments, primarily related to restructuring and disposition-related costs.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Net debt of $433 million was $70 million higher than the prior fiscal year-end, driven mostly by the repurchase of treasury stock in connection with Modine's share-based compensation program. Participants are allowed to sell a portion of their shares back to the company to cover their income tax withholding requirements. However, the shares are repurchased and held as treasury stock, reducing the number of shares outstanding used to calculate earnings per share. Our balance sheet remains strong with a leverage ratio of 0.9, and based on our current outlook for earnings and cash flow, we anticipate the leverage ratio will decrease further by year-end. Now let's turn to slide 12 for our fiscal 2027 outlook. As announced in our press release, our current revenue and earnings outlook is unchanged. Delivering on these results would represent our fifth consecutive year of record results.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Our outlook includes Performance Technologies for the full fiscal year. Once we know when the pending transaction will close, we'll provide an update on our full-year outlook for the remaining business. We'll report the historical results for PT in discontinued operations starting in for the quarter in which the transaction closes. For fiscal 2027, we expect total company sales to grow in the range of 20%-35%. For the Data Center segment, we expect sales to grow 60%-80%. For Commercial HVAC, we expect sales to grow 5%-10% this year. For Performance Technologies, we anticipate sales to be flat to up 5%, driven primarily by pricing mechanisms and our customer contracts for higher materials. We're expecting most markets to be flat with an opportunity for improvement in the back half of the year.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

We expect fiscal 2027 adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $650 million-$680 million, representing a growth rate in excess of 40%. This implies at least 100-200 basis points of margin improvement, driven by a margin increase in all three segments. From a sequential standpoint, we expect a step-up in margins from Q1 to Q2. For the remaining three quarters, we anticipate that each quarter will result in strong double-digit year-over-year earnings growth, along with favorable margin comparisons. From a free cash flow perspective, we expect that we'll generate a higher level of free cash flow. As a percentage of sales, we believe full-year free cash flow will be between 4% and 6%. Please see the appendix in this presentation for all the key assumptions, including interest expense, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

As we currently look at the next several quarters, we expect that margins and earnings will increase sequentially through the year, driven by the Data Center trends and our material cost recovery plans. To wrap up, we remain excited about fiscal 2027 and expect to deliver another year of record sales and adjusted EBITDA. Despite a few margin-related headwinds in the first quarter, we remain confident that our strategy and investments will generate continued long-term and sustainable growth for Modine shareholders. With that, Neil and I will take your questions.

Operator

If you have a question at this time, please press star, then one key on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star, then two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Noah Kaye
Noah Kaye
Analyst at Oppenheimer

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions, Neil and Mick, and our best to Art. I think, just trying to unpack the outlook here implied in the 85% segment earnings growth for the data center segment, some pretty healthy margin expansion there for the full year. Maybe that's a good place to start. Could you help us understand the trajectory as you see it moving through the year? I know you talked about sequential improvement, but just how to think about the shaping of that, if possible, and it would really, I think, get into level of confidence around supply chain issues abating and improving deliveries. Maybe you can comment on all that.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

You want me to go first, Neil? All right. Hey, Noah, it's Mick. Just to level set again, and we provided the recast. We had talked about over the last several quarters last year, the data center business hovering around the 20% EBITDA level, and we can go through any more questions with regards to the current quarter. Q4, we were between 19% and 20%.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Q1 a year ago, I mentioned the warranty issue where we had a large settlement, but that was about 20% normalized. We look at going into Q2, we would expect right now a lift to be back between 19% and 20%, really driven by a significant lift in the volume recovering. We expect to see about $100 million of incremental revenue, which would put us back ahead of our Q4 level. With that, we'd recover or capitalize on those fixed costs. From a sequential and a step up around our confidence in that, we see Q2 getting quickly back to where we've proven we can be and where we've been, even with all the expansions.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

The second part of your question, second half, we continue to have more and more as a percentage of our total capacity online, and the throughput will continue to flow through at higher incremental. We see the second half of the year clearly to get to our target. We'd see a step up in Q3 from Q2 in margin, another step up in Q4 from Q3. The plan here is our second half would be operating for the first time in a while, with the higher volumes above that 20% EBITDA margin range second half of the year. Neil, did I miss anything?

Noah Kaye
Noah Kaye
Analyst at Oppenheimer

Neil, if you wanted to add anything else, but that's extremely helpful, Mick. I think the question around demand, I think your results continue to speak to that. A third record quarter of orders. You talked about the backlog more than doubling. Maybe you can talk a little bit about conversion cycle times on backlog at this point. Are you seeing backlog extend out, and how does that factor into your capacity planning?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Thanks, Noah. This is Neil. Certainly, it does factor into the capacity planning, especially when we have to arrange the schedules within our plants based on available parts. We take these orders, we bring in and build our backlog, and we base it upon our launch schedules of our product lines as well as existing lines that we have. The backlog isn't totally made up of just product that needs to be produced in chiller facilities. We also have a great amount of backlog on our air handling units, and with Scott Springfield as well, which has very stable manufacturing at this time. Yep, those are considered. We factor that into our forecast. We factor that into our materials planning as well as our product launches inside the facilities.

Noah Kaye
Noah Kaye
Analyst at Oppenheimer

All right.

Operator

Our next question comes from Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Thanks. A couple questions. First, can you talk about whether you've started to see your A-quad customer begin to execute orders against that capacity LTA? Based on your ongoing discussions with this customer, how you see that LTA cadencing out between 2027, 2028, and 2029? I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

This is Neil. Thanks, Matt. Yes, we are seeing that. We've taken a couple orders already. We anticipate more orders as early as next week, that is right in line with what we expect for orders for order intake at Q4. Typically, we would suggest it'd be anywhere between a four to six-month lead time in order to prepare for that, and we're right in line with what our expectations were. In regards to the rollout in 2027, 2028, and 2029, it's 20%-25% in 2027. Kathy, it's 40?

Kathy Powers
VP, Treasurer, and Investor Relations at Modine

35.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

35% to 40% in '28 and '29.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Got it. As a follow-up, maybe walk through exactly what's been happening supply chain wise and help us better appreciate your confidence in your ability to lock down the remaining supply you need for this fiscal year and talk through whether or not you're considering a longer-term sort of supply LTA, if you will, to synergize with your own capacity agreement.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Sure. That's a good question. Yes, the answer is yes. With our critical suppliers, we are actively engaged and in discussions with LTAs and would expect to have that for FY 2028 as well as FY 2029 in place soon. In regards to today and now, I've been very public about the amount of suppliers that we've worked with. We doubled our supply chain spend year after year after year as we've grown the business, and this was yet another year of that. This is something that we're familiar with and how we manage it. I was pretty public that we would have four suppliers that we would put into that category that would potentially make us vulnerable. We identified that early on in our risk management process. The issue here was the timing. The shortages hit faster than we anticipated.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

With that, we decisively engaged our current suppliers, we're expanding our own capacity, and we're aggressively taking additional steps to mitigate this. In one instance, we're even considering vertical integration. We have done some pretty interesting things. I'll give a lot of credit to the operations teams, who really upskilled in operations. We've really invested in operations and brought in some key talent, particularly in the plants, at the most senior levels that are negotiating these long-term contracts, as well as helping us dynamically balance our launch schedules in line with the available capacity.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Just, I'm going to sneak in one more. When do you envision activating the remaining chiller lines in Grenada, Jefferson City, and the Dallas area? I dropped for a second, so I apologize if you already covered that. Are you thinking any differently about the 50%-70% data center organic framework you initially laid out and supported on your last earnings call for fiscal 2028? I think that was a comment from Mick last quarter. Thanks.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

We're confident in the numbers that we put out, Matt, we're going to get the flow from the materials corrected. We're going to get our supply chain situation resolved, we'll be able to catch up, and we'll be able to deliver on those numbers as we ramp lines. Certainly, the capacity that we would anticipate, that we are expanding in those regions you just asked about, by the end of the fiscal year, we'll be back on track and on schedule.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Perfect. Thank you, guys.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Meaning the lines will be up and established at some level of efficiency by the end of the fiscal year for each of those regions.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Understood. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from Neil Burke with UBS. Please go ahead.

Neil Burke
Neil Burke
Analyst at UBS

Thanks for the questions. You mentioned backlog doubling. I know you don't quantify this, but can you provide some indication of the level of coverage you have relative to sales expectations for this year? I just wonder, in maybe a more negative scenario with these supply chain issues, is there potential for some of the strong demand in the data center market to maybe be met by others who are less restricted on supply chain?

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Yeah, I'll go first. It's Mick. Probably the best way to think about the revenue outlook and order book is when we start a year, we have probably 70%, 80% of it in firm orders. For us, being a March year-end, we'll typically talk about really, and also Neil said typical POs being, call it, six months or so. Really firm six months out, two quarters, that's about production, supply chain execution. A little bit softer, a third quarter and our fourth is customers are there, they're giving us full visibility, but we always say we don't have firm POs. As we're moving through the year now, and it'll be the roll forward, as Neil was talking about, and about also the LTA we have with a hyperscaler, the orders and POs for our Q4 will start coming in.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

That's another reason why each year we've tried to start with a wider band and make sure we have contingency plans in there, with our hope is, as the year goes on, we're not only firming up our data center revenue, but hopefully pushing it to the higher end. Neil, anything you want to add on the second part?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Yeah. To your question, Neil, could they go somewhere else for that capacity? I would be more concerned if we were a commodity, but we're not. We have a value-added product that our customers desire to help solve their critical challenges and help them with their efficiency goals that they want to gain. What we have to do is we have to approach this in the right manner, which is leveraging 80/20 on how we handle these commercial engagements. Our largest customers get priority. When we see these shortages, we make sure that we keep up with demand with our largest customers that are our key accounts. Which means we have to have some more difficult conversations with some of our smaller customers, which we have.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

With our smaller customers, they understand as long as we give them enough time and we give them enough visibility, they're willing to work with us because they want the product. Fortunately for us, there's longer lead time issues in the data center supply chain, that when we are building data centers, there's some things that are beyond even some of our longest lead times. If we give them the proper visibility and they can plan for it, we don't surprise them, then we maintain those orders and those relationships and sales.

Neil Burke
Neil Burke
Analyst at UBS

That's helpful. One other question. Mick, you mentioned that you expect data center revenues, I think, up $100 million in 2Q, you mentioned that volume and margin improvements as the quarter progressed. Any indication, we're towards the end of July here, any indication how the month is trending in terms of availability and data center volumes? Thank you.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Yeah, sure thing. Neil, I'll let you go first with regards to anything with regards to You're kind of asking about how the first month here of the quarter's looking?

Neil Burke
Neil Burke
Analyst at UBS

Yeah.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

We've secured supply chain for going forward for this year. Assuming that they deliver on what our expectations are and what we've agreed to, then we'll have the supply chain necessary to meet our demand.

Operator

All right, that's clear. Thank you. Our next question comes from David Tarantino with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

David Tarantino
David Tarantino
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, good morning, guys.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Morning.

David Tarantino
David Tarantino
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

I just want to follow up on those last comments you were making, Neil. I think you said that the supply chain issues hit faster than expected, but I think in the release you also mentioned that you saw improvement as the quarter progressed. Maybe just kind of paint us the picture on how it progressed through the quarter, or maybe give us some color on how it kind of progressed through June and July, and how the actions you've taken showed through sequentially.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Yeah. When a few suppliers, critical suppliers across this space, and I think you've seen it with some of our competitors, we've even seen this with it. These critical suppliers essentially shut a lot of us down with a hard stop, and then we had to go in to negotiate specific volumes. The original projected volumes that they provided us were not going to be accepted. The team did a really good job punching above their weight in order to secure supply, considering that everybody in the industry needed these components. We were able to negotiate with them and secure that supply, and then get the facilities back up and running. Now, during that period of time, we had to make a decision, right? We've got some lines that are in the middle of launching that require these parts. They require these components.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

We now have to reposition these parts that become available to our highest producing, most efficient lines so that we can get the throughput necessary, which means you have to idle some other areas, which means you have to carry overhead, and you have to carry the labor in order to do this, knowing that it's a short-term problem. Those are the decisions we made. We're going to continue to train our employee base. We're going to carry that additional overhead. We're going to carry that labor because we know this is a short-term issue that we're going to be able to get through in a couple of months while we start to establish these long-term agreements with these suppliers, then look at other ways to risk mitigate this. There's multiple ways that the teams are working on risk mitigation.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

When we have these types of issues, we can pivot, and we can adjust faster.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Just one thing to add to that I want to make sure, too. When we look at the margins and the growth and the outlook, to me, from the finance standpoint, it's all about volume and the throughput. Neil always talks the product's there, the demand is there. It's a premium product. Even when we look at the quarter, I can tell you that to your question, the third month or the month of June, we were right where we'd normally want to be from a margin standpoint. I won't go into details by month, but I can tell you the first month or two where we were really having the shortage, and where we finished the third month of the quarter was right back where we'd expect to be and where we've been.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

When we look at Q2, it's like Neil said, assuming parts are there, it's all about the volume, the conversion, the margin will come through.

David Tarantino
David Tarantino
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay, great. Yeah, that's very helpful color. You talked about record orders backlog in data center. Maybe could you give us some color on the drivers between customer types and technologies here, and maybe just update us on the pipeline opportunities beyond the orders you received in the quarter and how that's evolved, particularly relative to kind of some of the incremental growth opportunities around both new products and customers?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

A big driver of that was with a couple of hyperscalers for us, that they continue to provide larger forecasts as we see the growth with their data center build-outs. The third one was with a large neocloud provider that we've worked with closely. It's basically the three largest customers that we have that are hyperscaler and neocloud that continue to increase their forecast with us.

David Tarantino
David Tarantino
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian Drab with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Brian Drab
Brian Drab
Analyst at William Blair

Okay. Thanks for taking my questions. That last one was going to be my first question, so I got that answer. Neil, can you just address again, are you seeing any change in demand for chillers related to evolving cooling system architectures and inlet fluid temperature spec for future GPU designs?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Yeah, it's improving. It's increasing for us because of the technology that we have with free cooling. As these temperatures increase, we have, I think, a really strong product to support that, and it just will continue to enhance in terms of the desire and the need for chillers. You saw that with the LTA that we took with a large hyperscaler out into 2029. We continue to see that with increased forecasts as we introduce the chiller product line, and our enhanced 3-megawatt chiller as well to our customers are very excited.

Brian Drab
Brian Drab
Analyst at William Blair

It is the idea that's driving the continued demand, even if inlet temperatures are going to be higher. Really, is it the combination of your chiller technology with the free cooling and the chiller, it has to be there for almost like an insurance policy, even if it's used maybe fewer days throughout the year than it would have been otherwise?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

That's exactly correct. Even if you're running at a higher inlet temperature, that's great because you can drive further efficiency and reduce the amount of power consumed at the data center. We're all for that, and that's why we want to go into that free cooling mode. In the event where you reach a temperature above that, you have put everything at risk if you don't have the insurance policy of the chiller and the refrigerant cycle.

Brian Drab
Brian Drab
Analyst at William Blair

Can you give any sense for the last wave of orders that you've gotten, pick the time period in the last six months or year. Do you have a sense for the breakdown of your chiller demand across the two categories of facility cooling versus incorporation into a direct-to-chip liquid cooling system?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

They support both, so it's hard for us to delineate between the two because you'll have similar models and SKUs on the same rooftop of a data center that does both. Without getting inside of the DC, it's hard for us to measure that. I can tell you that the orders have increased, and that's where we're seeing the backlog, in particular, is with our air handling units as well as our chillers.

Brian Drab
Brian Drab
Analyst at William Blair

Okay. Last one, if I could. You essentially sold most of your chiller capacity, I believe, with that LTA, more than half of it at least, and probably well more than half in the out years. I'm wondering if you're seeing other customers maybe step up and more strongly considering an LTA to get their share of the product going forward.

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Yeah. I'd say about half of it was part of the LTA, and I think that'll be reduced over time as we get more efficient with our product manufacturing, as well as when we launch the three-megawatt chiller. We'll be able to produce more, and the capacity will increase based on the ratio of 2 MW versus 3 MW. Certainly, we're in conversations with folks on timing. I don't see any LTAs of the same level of significance that we had with our first hyper, but definitely there are conversations as we continue to scale and ramp our facilities. We're looking at agreements that 12-18 months that are not necessarily as long as the three-year agreement we had with the hyper.

Brian Drab
Brian Drab
Analyst at William Blair

Got it. Okay. Thanks very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Jeff Van Sinderen
Jeff Van Sinderen
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Regarding the customer-driven delays that I think you mentioned in your prepared comments, are there any other major delays or shifts in timing by your customers that are potentially pending that they maybe made you aware of, that you're watching closely, that could impact demand timing? Also, are any of those factored into guidance that could shift in or shift out? Finally, what's the root cause of the delays? Is it centered around supply chain?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

I'll take the last one in terms of what the root cause is. That is based on new product launch. That is a design that we're doing with a specific hyperscaler around a unique product that's for the hyperscaler, that we're in probably the third iteration of the design cycle. When we went through some updates to the prints and some updates to the overall specifications of the product, it had adjusted it out of the quarter for the build.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Yeah. Second, Jeff, we have at all times in our forecast with the nature of the markets and some of the large construction projects attached, we do have contingencies, and we try to take different scenarios to this. I think candidly in Q2, it's just a little bit of a perfect storm of some of the supply-based items Neil talked about were deeper or longer. When the parts come in, these are such large components, you can't just make them up in a week or two with the lines and labor, even though parts are coming in the door. Combined with what Neil said, I reiterate that it wasn't like chiller orders getting canceled or pushed out. That was a new product launch. Going forward, we do try to build in contingencies and flexibility into our outlook, knowing things are going to go.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

We see ins and outs almost daily in the order intake and the production plans.

Jeff Van Sinderen
Jeff Van Sinderen
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Okay. That's helpful. Just kind of regarding the fiscal Q2 metric framework, wondering how you're thinking about order of magnitude for EBITDA or just EBITDA margin recovery. Do you think it's kind of more gradual maybe in Q2 and then sharper in Q3 and Q4, or how are you thinking about that for the remaining quarters of the year?

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Yeah. A couple things. Performance Technologies, I think we'll just address that. We expect pretty much the next quarter or two about the same. It's had the same market conditions, and they are doing a nice job to offset any costs or inflation there. Kind of similar level of margin there. Q2, we see a step-up with commercial HVAC. I already mentioned on the call, step up in Q2 for data centers, really getting back to where we've been in that range again. If you put that all together for us, it'll be a nice step up in our Q2 here. Probably a 200, 250 basis point lift. I mentioned on the call, we see Q2, three, and four having more favorable year-over-year, obviously margin comparisons as well. A pretty good step up in Q2.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Someone had asked earlier, obviously what's implied for the full year with data center is we would expect a margin step up in Q3 and in Q4 as well. That will be a big driver of our second half.

Jeff Van Sinderen
Jeff Van Sinderen
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll take the rest offline.

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Chris Moore
Chris Moore
Analyst at CJS Securities

Hey, good morning, guys. In terms of the product launches you were talking about, I wasn't sure. I know in the past you've talked about modular data centers, and you're partnering with one hyperscaler, working on the second generation, soon to be third generation. Were you talking about the modular data center or is that a separate topic to discuss here?

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

No, that was it, Chris. It was the same.

Chris Moore
Chris Moore
Analyst at CJS Securities

Okay.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

That was with that product. Yep.

Chris Moore
Chris Moore
Analyst at CJS Securities

Got you. Okay. Just in terms of as we move forward with our Performance Technologies, looking at when things normalize a little bit, just maybe from a gross margin perspective, looking at Data Center and looking at Commercial HVAC, is there a normalized level that we should be thinking about or which of those segments likely is going to drive the higher gross margin moving forward?

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Really good question. We haven't yet done the official pro forma for you, but I'll let you guys do that math. Clearly, part of the challenge on the PT side has been around the gross margin. Frankly, the Commercial HVAC and Data Center, Neil and I have talked about their ability to operate at a 30% type gross margin. Some of those businesses within there have already been there, are there, and have been there. I think in the case of Data Centers, Neil and I said that's a direction to go as we start to get more level loaded in a capacity utilization or a fixed cost absorption. You're right. If you back out Performance Technologies, we're probably thinking about somewhere between 7%-10% type gross margin lift when we are a pure HVAC Data Center company.

Chris Moore
Chris Moore
Analyst at CJS Securities

Got it. Very helpful. I'll leave it there. I appreciate it, guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

I just have a quick follow-up. Where are you, I guess, in your decisioning on whether or not Modine will ultimately need incremental fixed capacity or thinking about migrating more towards a variable model as you think about being able to more broadly address some of the hyperscalers that weren't part of the discussion when you referenced three specific customers as being the main driving force behind your air handlers and your chiller orders and backlog?

Neil Brinker
Neil Brinker
President and CEO at Modine

Yeah. We certainly have these conversations in terms of our manufacturing footprint and our supply chain strategy. It's also at the forefront of our design as well. As we think about our design, we're designing for the ability to be more modular. Not the modular unit, but modular as a term, meaning you have more flexibility because you have more of a systems approach in the factory. When we think about that, the range is right around $4 billion that we feel we have the capacity for over time with the existing CapEx deployment as well as the facilities and rooftops we have in place today.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

To get beyond that, it would be a different level of CapEx outlay if we were to choose to do that, or it could be a combination of both incremental additional facility or more efficiency on the existing lines, then leveraging some supply chain to help produce that overflow capacity. I think we've got time to figure that out, and we will. Certainly, we get more and more confidence that this is a problem that we are happy to solve for as we see the backlog and order increase.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Perfect. I just want to make sure I understood Mick correctly. The data center side of the business in the month of June was hitting sort of your desired profitability objective you laid out for the September quarter in that 19%-20% range, July is functioning along those same lines. Did I interpret that correctly, or am I interpreting that correctly?

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

You're adding a little color, that's okay. It is, that was my point. I'm not tracking margins mid-month here, what I wanted to make sure It was a good question, I think, from David. When we went through the quarter, we really saw the impact of that supply chain and having the plants waiting for parts. I was really happy to see when we started the lines up again, we finished the quarter, I think what I was saying, I'd say is it was up much more in range with where we'd expect it to be. Yeah, you heard it right. I didn't comment on July, frankly, that's just because I'm not tracking. I'll get profitability reports here as we come to the end of the month next week.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Did want to say that June was a big uptick, that's a really positive signal.

Matt Summerville
Matt Summerville
Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Perfect. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Our next question is from David Tarantino with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

David Tarantino
David Tarantino
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey. Just had two quick follow-ups. Maybe on commercial HVAC, we haven't touched on that yet. Just good to see some updates here on 80/20 initiatives here. Now that we can see the margins here more clearly, could you frame for us the opportunity here and how we should expect both margins to progress both this year and kind of what the opportunity on 80/20 is longer term?

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Yeah. I'll take it. Neil can add any color if we want. Yeah, that HVAC business, especially when we look at our heating business as one of the most profitable across our companies. In a normal environment, I think we like to see that operating north of 20 or in the low 20s from an EBITDA percentage. I mentioned that we're going to see an uptick here in Q2, probably 150 basis points or so, and we still think this business will end the year somewhere between 18% and 20%. From an 80/20 perspective, that is the opportunity set that I think you're asking about. Last year was about 16.7%, so the goal here is to add 200 basis points this year. Then I would expect we can do it again the following year. Frankly, the products are there, the business is there, and the demand.

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

We're doing a lot of plant consolidation right now from an 80/20 perspective, and we can drive significant margin improvements through leveraging 80/20 from an operations standpoint.

David Tarantino
David Tarantino
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay, great. Then maybe just a quick one on capital allocation. Clearly, organic investment's the focus, but balance sheet still remains pretty clean. Just following the drawback here in shares, would you consider leaning more into buybacks?

Mick Lucareli
EVP and CFO at Modine

Yeah. I know we have regular dialogue, Neil and I, with the board on that. Yeah, for sure. I think the two things we've said, and hopefully we'll come here to the last stretch of the spin-off. We've said we also need to gear up with an M&A outlook post that. Obviously, with shares trading down, we'll always have that discussion with the board as well.

David Tarantino
David Tarantino
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Kathy Powers.

Kathy Powers
VP, Treasurer, and Investor Relations at Modine

Thank you, and thanks, everyone, for joining our call this morning. The replay will be available through our website in a couple of hours. We hope everybody has a great day. Thanks.

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