Heico Q3 2026 Earnings Report

Heico EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.67
• Consensus EPS: $1.51
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.16
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.26

Heico Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.41 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.36 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$56.86 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +23.10%

Heico Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2026
• Date: 8/25/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Heico (NYSE:HEI) is an aerospace, defense and electronics company that designs, manufactures, and sells a range of products and provides repair and aftermarket services. Headquartered in Hollywood, Florida, HEICO supplies replacement components, repair services and engineered systems for commercial and business aviation, military and space markets as well as for selected industrial and medical customers. The company’s offerings are focused on sustaining and improving the reliability and availability of complex equipment across its end markets.

HEICO operates through two principal business areas. Its Flight Support activities provide FAA-approved alternative replacement parts (including parts manufactured under Parts Manufacturer Approval), repair services and accessory components for jet engines, airframes and avionics, plus distribution and logistics support to airlines, maintenance organizations and original equipment manufacturers. The Electronic Technologies side develops and produces electronic, electro-optical and photonics-based components and assemblies, including power and protection products, sensors, microwave and RF subassemblies and specialty electronics used by defense primes, spacecraft builders and industrial equipment manufacturers.

The company emphasizes aftermarket and niche engineered-product strategies, serving customers worldwide and aiming to reduce lifecycle costs for complex systems through certified repairs, replacements and upgrades. HEICO has grown through a combination of internal product development and a history of targeted acquisitions that expand its technical capabilities and market reach. As a publicly traded company, it operates under stringent quality and regulatory standards typical of aerospace and defense suppliers and maintains global service and distribution channels to support its customer base.

Heico Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Record third-quarter results: Net sales rose 23% to $1.41 billion, net income increased 33% to $235.4 million, and operating income climbed 34% to $355.2 million. Both the Flight Support and Electronic Technologies groups posted record sales and operating income.
• Positive Sentiment: Organic growth was broad-based, with Flight Support up 12% and Electronic Technologies up 18%; management cited strong demand across commercial aerospace, defense, space, industrial technology, and electronics. Backlog and bookings were described as exceptionally strong, with customers requesting accelerated deliveries.
• Positive Sentiment: Profitability continued to expand, with operating margins reaching 25.9% in Flight Support and 26.0% in Electronic Technologies. Operating cash flow rose 49% to $345.3 million, or nearly 150% of net income.
• Positive Sentiment: HEICO strengthened its financial flexibility by issuing $1.2 billion of senior notes, extending its revolver maturity to 2031, and increasing potential credit capacity to $3 billion. Management also highlighted a robust acquisition pipeline and expects the Cook Defence and CalRamic acquisitions to be earnings-accretive within a year.
• Negative Sentiment: Supply-chain constraints remain a significant issue, particularly in component repair, where missing parts are delaying shipments; management said conditions have improved in some areas but remain a persistent headache. Slower air traffic could eventually reduce commercial parts demand, while fourth-quarter operating cash flow will face an estimated $70 million–$75 million payment related to the former chairman’s estate.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the HEICO Corporation third quarter 2026 financial results call. My name is Samara, and I will be your operator for today's call. Certain statements in this conference call will constitute forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties, and contingencies. HEICO's actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by those forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause such differences include, among others, the severity, magnitude, and duration of public health threats, our liquidity and the amount and timing of cash generation, lower commercial air travel, airline fleet changes, or airline purchasing decisions.

[Operator]

Which could cause lower demand for our goods and services, product specification costs and requirements, which could cause an increase in our cost to complete contracts, governmental and regulatory demands, export policies and restrictions, reductions in defense, space, or homeland security spending by U.S. and/or foreign customers, or competition from existing and new competitors, which could reduce our sales.

[Operator]

Our ability to introduce new products and services at profitable pricing levels, which could reduce our sales or sales growth, product development or manufacturing difficulties, which could increase our product development and manufacturing costs and delay sales, cybersecurity events or other disruptions of our information technology systems could adversely affect our business and our ability to make acquisitions, including obtaining any applicable domestic and/or foreign governmental approvals and achieve operating synergies from acquired businesses, customer credit risk, interest, foreign currency exchange, and income tax rates and economic conditions, including the effects of inflation within and outside of the aviation, defense, space, medical, telecommunications, and electronics industries, which could negatively impact our costs and revenues.

[Operator]

Parties listening to this call are encouraged to review all of HEICO's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to filings on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and Form 8-K. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except to the extent required by applicable law. I now turn the call over to Eric Mendelson, HEICO's Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you, and good morning to everyone on this call. Thank you for joining us, and we welcome you to this HEICO third quarter fiscal 2026 earnings announcement teleconference. I'm Eric Mendelson, HEICO's Co-Chairman and Co-CEO. I'm joined here this morning by Victor Mendelson, HEICO's other Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, and Carlos Macau, our Executive Vice President and CFO. Before getting into our results, I would first like to thank HEICO's nearly 13,000 outstanding team members around the world. Once again, your dedication to our company, our customers, and your fellow team members produced yet another exceptional quarter for HEICO. We are tremendously grateful for everything you do and remain excited about HEICO's future and the opportunities ahead.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

One of the most asked questions by investors and analysts is: What is HEICO's secret sauce, and how does HEICO continue to report exceptional earnings growth, not only quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, but decade over decade for nearly 37 years? The answer is always simple: good markets, solid businesses, and even greater people. HEICO succeeds because we simply try harder, and our customers don't have to come to us, in general, because they have no other alternative. Customers buy from HEICO because they want to buy from HEICO for our highest quality, with the shortest turn times at the most competitive price, and most importantly, from who we believe are the best people in our industry. HEICO team members who possess a certain HEICO DNA developed over decades, not just the last upcycle.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

When you want to thank Victor, Carlos, or me, please know that we're just simply the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and we, in turn, will thank Team HEICO for all of their hard work, technical excellence, and most importantly, HEICO camaraderie. Of course, there's HEICO's team members' never-ending focus on cash flow. As one of our close friends told us many years ago, and as we always say at HEICO, "Earnings are opinion. Cash flow is fact." This quarter, I'm proud to announce there was $345 million of it. $345 million of cash generated from operations, which is almost 150% of our net income. Thank you, Team HEICO.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

We are immensely proud of our third quarter results, which shows continued margin expansion, robust organic growth, and strong cash generation. We remain very bullish and optimistic about HEICO's opportunities and our ability to continue our long-term growth and profitability. To summarize the highlights of our third quarter fiscal 2026 results, consolidated net income, operating income, and net sales in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 represent record results for HEICO, increasing by 33%, 34%, and 23%, respectively, compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Consolidated net income increased 33% to a record $235.4 million, or $1.67 per diluted share in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $177.3 million or $1.26 per diluted share in the third quarter of fiscal 2025.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Consolidated operating income increased 34% to a record $355.2 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $265 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Consolidated net sales increased 23% to a record $1,413,100,000 in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $1,147,600,000 in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. The Electronic Technologies Group set all-time quarterly operating income and net sales records in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, increasing 55% and 36%, respectively, over the third quarter of 2025. Wow. These increases principally reflect strong 18% organic growth driven by an improved demand for most of the Electronic Technologies Group's products, as well as contributions from our fiscal 2026 and 2025 acquisitions.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

The Flight Support Group also set all-time quarterly operating income and net sales records in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, improving 24% and 18%, respectively, over the third quarter of fiscal 2025. These increases principally reflect strong 12% organic growth from increased demand across all of our product lines, as well as the contributions from our fiscal 2026 acquisitions. Consolidated EBITDA increased 31% to $415.2 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $316.4 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio improved to 1.57x as of July 31, 2026, down from 1.6x as of October 31st, 2025. Cash flow provided by operating activities increased 49% to $345.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $231.2 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

During the third quarter, we issued $1.2 billion of senior unsecured notes, further strengthening our balance sheet, and used the proceeds to repay outstanding borrowings under our revolving credit facility. At the same time, we entered into an agreement to amend and extend the maturity date of our revolving credit agreement by three years to June 2031, and to increase the committed capital to $2.2 billion. Furthermore, our credit facility now includes a feature to increase the capacity by $800 million to become a $3 billion facility through increased lender commitments and can be extended for two additional one-year periods. We are very pleased with the execution of the bond offering and credit facility amendments, which further enhances our liquidity and financial flexibility and positions HEICO to continue pursuing our long-term growth objectives.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

We would like to thank Truist, Bank of America, PNC, Wells Fargo, Crédit Agricole, TD, Huntington, JPMorgan, M&T, and RBC for their long-term support of our growth capital needs. In July 2026, we paid our 96th consecutive semiannual cash dividend since 1979 at the rate of $0.13 per share, representing an 8% increase over the prior dividend paid in January of 2026. In June, we completed two acquisitions. Our Flight Support Group, through an 80%-owned subsidiary, acquired 100% of the stock of Cook Defence Systems Limited, William Cook Stanhope Limited, and William Cook Intermodal Limited, collectively, we call Cook Defence. Cook Defence designs and manufactures track systems, mobility solutions, and armored steel components for military fighting vehicles. The purchase price was paid in cash, principally using proceeds from our revolving credit facility.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

The Electronic Technologies Group, Exxelia's subsidiary, acquired 90% of the membership interests in CalRamic Technologies LLC. CalRamic designs and manufactures high voltage ceramic capacitors for high reliability applications, primarily serving the aerospace and defense markets, as well as select industrial niches. The purchase price was paid in cash using cash provided by operating activities. We expect both of these acquisitions to be accretive to our earnings within the year following the acquisition. In addition, we have an excellent acquisition pipeline consisting of great potential transactions, both large and small. I now turn the call over to Victor Mendelson, HEICO's Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, to discuss the third quarter results of our Flight Support and Electronic Technologies Groups in greater detail.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Eric, thank you very much. Before getting into the details, I would also like to recognize and thank our outstanding team members around the world. The results we are discussing today reflect your continued dedication, your discipline, and your commitment to serving our customers and to strengthening our company. We are incredibly grateful for everything you do, and we are as excited as ever about HEICO's future and the opportunities ahead for all of us. Turning now to details of the operations. The Flight Support Group's net sales increased 18% to a record $947.8 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $802.7 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. That sales increase resulted from strong organic growth of 12%, as well as the impact from our fiscal 2026 acquisitions. Of course, the organic sales growth reflects increased demand across all, I emphasize all, of our product lines.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

The Flight Support Group's operating income increased 24% to a record $245.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $198.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. That operating income increase was principally derived from that previously mentioned net sales growth, as well as an improved gross profit margin and SG&A expense efficiencies that were realized from the net sales growth. The improved gross profit margin principally reflects a more favorable product mix within our specialty products and our aftermarket replacement parts product lines. Flight Support Group's operating margin improved to 25.9% in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from 24.7% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, and that operating margin increase arose chiefly from the previously mentioned improved gross profit margin.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Given, by the way, that acquisition-related intangible amortization expense consumed approximately 200 basis points of our operating margin in the FSG in the third quarter of fiscal 2026. The FSG's cash margin, which is the way, by the way, we judge businesses and we believe businesses should be judged, so before amortization, we call it EBITA, was approximately 28.5%, which has been consistently excellent, and in absolute terms is, as far as I am concerned, spectacular. That is 110 basis points higher than the comparable FSG cash margin of 27.4% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. To achieve these margins at these levels while continuing to deliver meaningful cost savings, outstanding service, and exceptionally fast turnaround times to our customers is a strong reflection of the value our team members continue to deliver.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Turning to the ETG, the Electronic Technologies Group net sales increased 36% to a record $483.5 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from $355.9 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. That reflects robust organic growth of 18% and the impact from our fiscal 2026 and 2025 acquisitions. The organic net sales growth is mainly attributable to increased demand for, and I will add sales of, our other electronics, defense, and aerospace products. The Electronic Technologies Group operating income increased 55%, as you heard earlier, to a record $125.6 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2026. That is up from $81 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Operating income increase principally reflects the previously mentioned net sales growth, our SG&A expense efficiencies realized from the sales growth, and an improved gross profit margin.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

That improved gross profit margin, by the way, was mainly fueled by the previously mentioned higher net sales of our aerospace products. The Electronic Technologies Group's operating margin improved to 26% in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up from 22.8% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025. That margin increase resulted from decreased SG&A expenses as a percent of net sales, primarily driven by the previously mentioned SG&A expense efficiencies, as well as the improved gross margin that I mentioned before. Importantly, just like with the discussion in the FSG, before acquisition-related intangible expense, our operating margin was 29.9%, virtually 30%, as intangibles amortization consumed about 390 basis points of the margin. This compares to 26.6% ETG cash margin in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, an improvement of 330 basis points.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Again, I can't emphasize enough, this is how we judge our businesses, as that most closely correlates to cash generation. I think you know, and have known for many years, our predominant focus is on cash and cash generation. HEICO's a real company that generates real cash. It's not just accounting figures coming out of a machine. We make money. On a true operating basis, no matter how you look at it, those are great margins, and we are very pleased with the continued expansion of these margins, of course. With this point, I will turn the call back over to our operator, Samara, to entertain the questions that we may have.

[Operator]

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question, and we'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We'll take our first question from Larry Solow with CJS Securities.

[Larry Solow, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Great. Thanks. Good morning, and congrats on a really great quarter. Like you said, Victor, you're printing money there. I guess question for you, Victor, just on the really strong organic growth, 18%, I think back-to-back quarters and year-to-date mid-teens. Maybe this level's not sustainable, but certainly much better than it was a couple years back. Just curious, can you help us just, it sounds like all your categories are really hitting on all cylinders between defense, aerospace, and electronics. Is there any one particular category that's really just I know defense is almost half your revenue, so is that really driving this exceptional growth or just any more color there would be great.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you for asking, Larry. Yes, it is very broad-based. I guess our highest percentage growth increase came out of our, what people now seem to be calling industrial technology markets. But I can say that defense and commercial aviation or aerospace were also extremely strong. In fact, every one of our verticals, if you look at it that way, every one of the markets, the verticals showed positive signs this quarter. But there were ones that were more standouts than others, but I'm certainly proud of all of them.

[Larry Solow, Analyst at CJS Securities]

How about just trends and bookings behind these categories? Any color there?

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. Listen, the trends in bookings are very strong. We have a record backlog again, both organically and with acquisitions in the ETG, just very strong backlog, extremely strong orders, particularly in that kind of industrial tech space. A lot of customers are coming in and asking us to expedite where possible in a number of instances, and then they're following up with orders beyond that, filling up the backlog. It doesn't so far seem to be all right, pull this forward for us and then it creates a gap somewhere later. We do everything we can, by the way, to satisfy our customers, to do it cost effectively, and to honor their requests where we can. It's not always possible, but it just seems there's very strong orders there. I will say, it's similar situation in defense.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

There's a lot of requests for pull forward, the same in commercial aviation and some of the other markets. Right now seems to be a moment where customers are saying, "How quickly can you get this to us? Can you get it to us faster?

[Larry Solow, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Right. Okay, great. Last question, just for Carlos. Just on the margins, obviously Victor discussed the EBITA margins above 28% now two consecutive quarters consolidated. I do not want to get ahead of you, but just any thoughts as we wrap up the year and then as we look out over the next couple of years?

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

From my perspective, we still expect in that segment the 22%-24% GAAP margins, which really equate to something like 26%-28% EBITA margins. We have had a strong couple quarters. Of course, our first quarter was a little light on the operating margin side. So, for the full year, we still expect that range. We are still in the process now of doing budgets and thinking about next year, and we will see how things play out, Larry. I do not want to get too far out ahead of us.

[Larry Solow, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Sure.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

On that topic. But right now, the tailwind that we are getting from aerospace, defense, space, really all the verticals, as Victor mentioned, is very positive. As long as that mix holds in, the segment always surprises us to the upside. So that is kind of how I would like to answer that and rather not elevate expectations at this point.

[Larry Solow, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Fair enough. Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

You bet.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs.

[Noah Poponak, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hey, good morning, everyone.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

Hi, Noah.

[Noah Poponak, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Carlos, maybe just to quickly follow up there on the ETG margin. The last two quarters, 2026 and change versus that 2022-2024, is that entirely mix? Because it sounds like you're also referencing SG&A efficiencies, which I think would be longer lasting, and presumably just as you continue to grow revenue, there's an overhead absorption impact as well.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

Yep. No, you're 100% right, Noah. You've known us for a long time, this segment is quite mix sensitive, and the challenge is, particularly in ETG with our fourth quarter going into what are most calendar year filers' last quarter, the mix can get a little chaotic. I don't want to set expectations too high. I can't give you a good or bad reason why the margins would not remain strong given the setup with our end markets. But at this moment, I don't want to plant a flag and sort of change our internal expectations or what we talk about publicly related to margins till we get another quarter or two under our belts.

[Noah Poponak, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Okay, makes sense. You guys have talked about the cash flow strength. It's looking like it'll be a second year where the free cash conversion from EBITDA is around 70%. I don't know if you could talk about where you expect the year to wrap up around the billion-dollar mark on free cash, and just is there something that's changed structurally in the business to have a little bit higher conversion from the P&L than you've had in the past?

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

No, there hasn't been any structural changes. I think that what happens here at HEICO is we incrementally add sales to the business and grow. We don't have a commensurate growth in what I would call is corporate overhead and BS, right? It truly is the dollars we spend to grow the business are done at the subsidiary levels, and that is the most efficient way to spend our money to grow the business. It's not a big corporate overhead monster. We do get a lot of lift, to your point, in our cash flow through these sales growth. There's nothing structural that's changes. I do expect this year to be quite high in free cash generation. There's no leaves to add to that tree for you as far as any structural changes.

[Noah Poponak, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Okay. Then lastly, on its deployment. Since Wencor, it's been many quarters of a few hundred million dollars deployed towards smaller acquisitions. As we look to year 2027 and 2028, are we more likely to see that continue, or are we more likely to see something closer to the size of Wencor again?

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

I will let Eric and Victor jump on that one, but I will point out that we spent a lot of time during the third quarter redoing some of our capital structure to reshuffle a deck and create liquidity so I could make sure that when Eric and Victor go to the grocery store and buy their businesses, they have plenty of cash to do it with. Right now, as Eric mentioned in the opening remarks, with our accordion, we've got close to $3 billion in capacity right now off our line that we could deploy. We're set up to continue a nice string of acquisitions here. Now, the question for you two guys, I'm talking to Eric and Victor at the table here, do we have those opportunities to do it?

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yes. Noah, our pipeline is incredibly full. We've got an incredible M&A team, and they are out beating the bushes, looking at all sorts of proprietary deals, various processes. As you know, we've worked very hard to be the buyer of choice, and I really believe that we are the best home in the industry for businesses, the way we treat people, what the expectations are going forward, the network that they're plugged into. I would say Victor and I are very optimistic on continuing our track record. With regard to smaller or medium-sized businesses versus larger businesses, I would say that HEICO is very comfortable with all of those. We're comfortable with small acquisitions. We understand how the small deals work and small businesses work, and we provide a great home. Likewise with the medium, and likewise with the large.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

The Wencor combination has been an absolute home run for HEICO as well as for Wencor. It's gone exceptionally well. We've got a phenomenal team there, and it's given us a lot of confidence to execute on larger deals should they become available. The issue is not whether there are targets out there, it's more whether the culture really fits, like it did with Wencor, and if the price works for everybody. I can promise you, we're very busy on all fronts.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

I just might add to that Wencor was our largest acquisition, but we have also done some of considerable size as well, and all of those have performed exceedingly well. We have been very happy. So the deals of all sides have worked nicely.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

I think, just to put a fine point on all of that, Noah, just remember our goal is to grow the company 15% the net income growth in the company goal is just to continue to grow 15%-20% annually. I think between our organic growth and the capacity we have to fund deals, we should be in good position to continue that track record.

[Noah Poponak, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks very much.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Peter Arment with Baird.

[Peter Arment, Analyst at Baird]

Yeah, good morning, Eric, Victor, Carlos. Nice results.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Peter Arment, Analyst at Baird]

Hey, Victor, ETG growth kind of accelerating. I wonder if you could maybe just give us an update on kind of what the demand pull is from Europe. Obviously, we know those budgets are firming up, and just thinking about Exxelia and some of your other European footprint, maybe you could give us a little more color on Europe.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. Thank you for asking. Europe's been very strong for us, both here in the U.S. shipping to Europe, by the way, and from within the European market itself. Exxelia, I was alluding to that in my answer to Noah's question. Exxelia is doing extremely well, both in Europe and here, I should add. But our strategy in Europe has been to grow there. We've added some acquisitions. You've seen recently over there, I think we have a pretty strong appetite for it. We're excited about that future. Not just on defense, for the obvious reasons of their rising defense budgets, but also on commercial aviation as well as the industrial tech.

[Peter Arment, Analyst at Baird]

Got it. Appreciate that. Then, just maybe a high-level one, both for Eric, Victor, just on the right to repair legislation, a lot of things going on. Obviously, there's been things kicking around since the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act, Section 349. If the language stays in for the fiscal 2027 NDAA, just wondering how you're thinking about the tailwinds or how quickly that could impact your business, both on the commercial and defense side of things. Thanks.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. This is Eric, Peter. I can tell you that HEICO's approximately 100 operating businesses are all very knowledgeable about what's happening out in the field, and they are going to take opportunity of whatever presents itself. I think that there are some very good opportunities for HEICO in that area. I don't want to get out in front of it. We'll see what happens with the final outcome of all this. But I can promise you that our folks are really going to be on top of it, and we think there are a number of areas of opportunity. Without going into specifics, obviously for competitive reasons, we think we're in a very good position to basically help save the government a lot of money.

[Peter Arment, Analyst at Baird]

Appreciate it. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks, guys.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

Good morning, guys, and thank you so much for the time. Lots to chat about. Maybe, Eric, I'll start with you, if that's okay. Can we just chat about the different parts of FSG growth to lead to the 12% and what you saw within aftermarket replacement, repair, and then specialty products?

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Sure. The parts business, you're talking on the organic side.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

Yeah.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Was 15% organic growth. By the way, I should mention, I know that it's sort of standard for the industry to talk about organic revenue growth, but again, just to focus, at HEICO, the thing that we really care about is operating income growth, organic operating income growth, and that's really the key driver for us. Let me start out by saying that the 12% organic growth, which we're very happy with on revenue, pales in comparison compared to approximately 20% organic operating income growth. That's what our people are focused on. If they can trade lower margin sales for higher value add sales where we can drive margin, I can tell you, nobody at HEICO is compensated based on revenue. Revenue doesn't really matter. It's obviously the earnings.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

But to answer your question, the parts and distribution, 15%, the specialty products is 14%, and the component repair was 5%, which obviously is lower and brought down the average. But you also have to understand that in the component repair business, we have a number of businesses where their value proposition is to develop alternative repairs, and use alternative parts. That brings down the revenue. So, it increases the value to our customers. It frankly can increase the profitability to HEICO, which is what we all care about, but it can bring down the revenue. So now we do also have a number of businesses within component repair that are OEM aligned, and where there is no use of alternative material and no plans to do that. There is a market for that on those products with those customers.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

And we continue to go ahead and do that. But we do still have a chunk of our business focused on the alternative space, and that does bring down the revenue. But I can tell you that the profitability is definitely higher than the organic revenue growth in that space.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

No, that's great color. Maybe if I could double-click on those two items then, just on the component repair and also specialty products. How is PMA adoption going? Does the component repair work help in that process? It seems like it does. Then within specialty products, if you could in any way give us color on that 14%, what your defense business is doing relative to commercial.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. With regard to component repair, yes, the PMA penetration is going extraordinarily well in the markets that want it. Again, we're very careful. We have multiple subsidiaries and multiple product lines whereby we don't even offer alternatives with certain products because those are our agreements and that's what the customers want. But in the areas where the customers are asking for alternatives and where we're generating them, yes, the PMA penetration is doing extremely well, and the HEICO proprietary DER penetration is doing equally as well. With regard to specialty products, that is largely driven by defense. Our organic growth in defense is very large. It's probably well up in the upper 20s. We anticipate continued growth in specialty products in the defense area.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thank you so much for that color.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thanks, Sheila.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Sheila?

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

Yes.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

You still there?

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

Yeah, I am here.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

You did not ask, but scrambled egg whites. Avocado toast and smoked salmon.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

Sticking to healthy, I see. Okay, good to see. Thank you very much for that update.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

The most important part.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies]

Yep, it was. Thank you.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thanks.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from John Godyn with Citigroup.

[John Godyn, Analyst at Citigroup]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Obviously, HEICO has a long heritage in PMA aerospace aftermarket, but more and more, the other exposures that the company seem to be expressing themselves and really showing through in the numbers. I was just hoping we could spend an extra minute on the outlook for HEICO's exposure to other fast-growing themes that are out there that are not aerospace aftermarket. Things like missiles, space, IGT, the last couple of quarters is something that came up around the edges, maybe drone components or anything else you'd flag. It just feels like we're entering a world where some of the other business lines in HEICO that are historically small may be really starting to see dramatic growth that actually moves the needle.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. John, this is Victor. Absolutely, and those areas are ones that we've been focused on for quite a long time. We talk about drones, for example, and we've been serving in various ways the drone market in a serious way, by the way, in very serious ways, going back to, I don't know, probably before 2008, 2007, before they were kind of a household name. We've continued to evolve with that, in both sides, both the ETG and the FSG, and with both electronic components, electro-optical components, as well as structural components like composites and others. I'll add, that has expanded. It's not just the historical mainstays of the market, which do remain strong for us, but now we're serving the newer defense tech space, and that is a growing business for us.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

I would say defense tech represents for us probably what defense tech is a proportion. Defense tech represents to the overall market in revenues at this point. But we're there, and we're on those, and we're very proud and excited. Obviously, I can't tell you which ones. I don't want to get into that for competitive reasons. In terms of missiles and missile defense, we've seen, I think I mentioned in our last call, we're on a lot of different programs there, both again in ETG and FSG have been historically, and we have instances where our customers have come to us and asked us to prepare to 10x our production. In some cases, contracted with us already and said, "Okay, you need to double or triple or even four times." So it's kind of all over the place, but a lot of growth in those markets.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Then adding on the industrial tech side, we're definitely seeing an effect from AI, data center construction, and so on. How long that goes on, our sense is it has legs, that this is not just a one-year blip. We have a lot of components that we make in a number of subsidiaries that are used in various quantities there. So we feel like we're participating in that as well. Of course, space, commercial space, defense space is embedded within our defense markets. But just first talking about commercial space, we all read the same things. That market is growing tremendously. There's a great deal that's happening there. Our components are on those. We're staying, I believe, ahead of the curve with that.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Even in defense space, opportunities like Golden Dome, there are instances where we suspect we're on Golden Dome, it hasn't been confirmed, and in some instances, we feel certain that it's Golden Dome related. So if you look at HEICO, final comment, we don't look for the single magic silver bullet. It's mixing metaphors here, singles and doubles. It's this very steady growth rate. We're looking for that 15%-20% bottom line growth each year. We're not looking, frankly, it's a controlled growth strategy. We're not looking to grow 50% one year and then only 5% the next and have a volatile situation. So we manage it, and we manage it very carefully.

[John Godyn, Analyst at Citigroup]

Yeah.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

And then also just to add.

[John Godyn, Analyst at Citigroup]

Go ahead.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

With regard to the IGT area, of course, you are aware of the Ethos acquisition that we made earlier this year, and we are very excited about their repair capabilities for the IGT market. And we think that there is a lot of potential there for obvious reasons. And we are also seeing orders not only in our Ethos IGT repair business, but we are also seeing orders for IGT products within our other parts business.

[John Godyn, Analyst at Citigroup]

That was great color, and I certainly do not expect you guys to break out organic growth for each of those business lines, but at a high level, is it fair to say that the organic growth behind those themes is leading HEICO? I am just trying to understand what you guys are seeing and if we are hitting that S-curve in some of these businesses. It seems like we may be.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah, I think that there's a lot of potential, as I mentioned in Sheila's answer, Sheila's question, that our defense revenue organic growth, for example, over in the Flight Support side was extremely strong in the upper 20s. So that's leading the way right now. But we see strength across all of the markets.

[John Godyn, Analyst at Citigroup]

Great. Thanks, guys.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

Similar in ETG, defense and aerospace seem to be leading the way on growth.

[Operator]

And we will take our next question from Ron Epstein with Bank of America.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Good morning, Ron.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

So a couple quick ones for you. Everything is kind of coming up roses right now, which is great, but is there anything that worries you? Are there any areas where you are spending a little more time just making sure that kind of everything is lining up the way you want? How are your supply chains doing? How is your labor front? Is there anything else, like Canada and what is going on there, that you are just trying to have a strategy around in case something goes awry? So what are you spending your time on trying to solve? Because it seems like everything else is going just great.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. Ron, this is Victor, and Eric will answer it as well. But in terms of where we are spending our time, I would say it is in the traditional ways and the traditional places. There is nothing that particularly stands out that is unusual. It is somewhat prosaic, but the basic blocking and tackling in the business and making sure that we are doing all the things we should be doing on taking care of customers, and our people, and acquisitions, and capital structure, et cetera. But the areas that are ones we watch but do not really have much control over, of course, are the geopolitical ones, right?

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Where is there a spike, a short-term spike in oil prices, or is there some short-term issue that we may have to deal with, where it is hard really to plan for, and we generally look at it that we are not going to run the business for those short-term interests, and we are going to keep running it for that long-term view. Hiring-wise, I would say it is about the same as it was. It has been challenging hiring great people and bringing great people into an organization. It has not gotten easier, but I do not think it has gotten worse. Right now with AI and things like that, our anticipation is that labor situation shouldn't be a problem. There is inflation in input costs, and we have to be able to pass those on. I think a lot of that is driven by the AI market.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

We do notice anecdotally that there are just kind of a broad smattering of parts and components and sub-components and raw materials that are pushing out in lead times and becoming more expensive. So the challenges our companies are facing a little more are planning for those. So they are getting out a little longer on orders for their materials to make sure that does not impact them. It is nothing pronounced yet, but I would say that is something at least I am kind of keeping an eye on because I hear these stories anecdotally, but very proud of the way our companies are dealing with it.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Ron, the other thing that I would add is that we've got a very mature team. We've been doing this for a long time, and we've seen a lot of market dislocations, and we've learned from that. Whether it's 9/11 and SARS or the global financial crisis or COVID, we know what happens. We've seen this movie before, unfortunately, where things can go wrong where no one expects it. That's why we work very hard to set up this organization that we've got, which is a decentralized organization where people really understand their markets very well, and they're close to their customers. If you look at any of those dislocations, HEICO has been far more resilient and bounced back quicker than typically others in the industry.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

I believe it's, again, due to the HEICO people, the HEICO structure, our DNA, which causes the business to be very resilient. Victor spoke about the various geopolitical events. I think that's obviously the greatest risks, which they always are, but I feel very confident that the HEICO team is well prepared for whatever the future may bring. Frankly, when we look at the numbers and the projections going forward, we're extremely optimistic.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Got you.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Got you.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

We're very.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Maybe just.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Go ahead.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Yeah. Maybe just another follow on. How are you guys thinking about, or do you not at all, but just curious if you do, be it that you've been so good at traditional M&A, how do you think about corporate venture capital? Given what's going on in call it aerospace tech and defense tech and otherwise, have you guys thought of making bets there or not? Is that kind of outside of what you normally do? Have you thought about it? Just curious what you're thinking.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah, this is Victor. As an overarching observation, I don't see us setting up a venture fund, having a kind of a venture tech arm as other companies do, because we don't see that being in our remit broadly at this point. But having said that, we have invested in a handful of companies for strategic reasons that are venture tech investments, and that have worked out very well. We didn't do it just for the return. It wasn't sort of like we're betting on Anthropic or something like that. It was because we needed something they were making, or we wanted the relationship, and we wanted to be part of it. So I think we'll continue to do that very carefully, very strategically, without becoming a VC fund.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. All right, guys. Thank you very much, and have a good day.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you. You too.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Jon Siegmann with Stifel.

[Sebastian Rivera, Analyst at Stifel]

Hey, good morning, guys. This is Sebastian Rivera on for Jon today. Maybe just quickly, last quarter you had mentioned these DoW framework agreements were still being worked out and not sure where they'd land and capacity investments around that would be anchored on having those concrete LTAs in hand. Is there any update you can maybe note there?

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. We're beginning to see some of those come to fruition. I think there's a lot more to go, but we've definitely seen some POs and contracts appearing for the multiplier, I'll call them the multiplier effect that I mentioned earlier in one of my other answers, and I would expect that to continue for some time.

[Sebastian Rivera, Analyst at Stifel]

Then maybe to kind of piggyback on Sheila's question, can you maybe just quantify how much Wencor has kind of enabled the margin step-up year to date in FSG and what inning you guys are in in terms of that PMA content replacement opportunity?

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah, I don't know specifically that Wencor has created the margin step-up opportunity. We always thought that there were synergies that could be achieved, and we've been able to get them, and that certainly has helped. I think there's a lot more that the businesses can do together. To guess what inning we're in, that's hard to say, but maybe the fifth inning. I think we still have got plenty more to go. Depending on if certain plans and objectives and thoughts come into play, it could be the second inning. But we're working on all that now. But it's been a phenomenal combination, and I'm very excited about the future for the combined company.

[Sebastian Rivera, Analyst at Stifel]

I'll turn it over. Congrats on the strong quarter.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Pete Skibitski with Alembic Global.

[Pete Skibitski, Analyst at Alembic Global]

Hey, good morning, everyone. Nice quarter. Little bit of a follow-on to the last question, guys. With one quarter left in fiscal 2026, I'm just trying to think about the levers still available to you to drive organic growth in FSG, specifically in commercial, when we think about maybe slowing global air traffic growth. I was wondering if you can walk through maybe the opportunities still available in market share gains, new product introductions, maybe even pricing and whatever other levers you feel like are available to you to drive organic growth in commercial at FSG in a flattening traffic environment. Thanks.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Well, there's a lot of, I would say, unsold potential throughout the entire business, and there's a lot more revenue I think that we can get. Frankly, our customers are very excited about what we are offering, both on the independent as well as the OEM aligned side. I think that there's a tremendous amount of opportunity in those areas. And I can tell you in speaking with our business leadership and our sales leadership, they're very excited going forward. We've got customers with all sorts of big ideas, and we're going to be here to support them. I would say it's just the standard HEICO playbook. Nothing different than it's been for the last decade.

[Pete Skibitski, Analyst at Alembic Global]

Okay, great. Maybe just one follow-up, Eric. I'm curious, as kind of global air traffic kind of shifts to Asia, it's been going in that direction obviously, but continues to, do you guys have any thought about opening more repair stations in Asia to capture some of the demand there, or is location not really as relevant to commercial aftermarket as with your positioning?

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah, we've been able to do very well in commercial aftermarket with our positioning. We're always looking at various opportunities. But I'd sort of rather not get into the specifics of that, but we've been highly successful in our approach. We've got multiple sales offices over there, very deep relationships. And I think our customers are very happy with what we've got. We also have operations in Asia, not component overhaul, but other operations in Asia, which are very helpful. I think time will tell what we end up doing in that area.

[Pete Skibitski, Analyst at Alembic Global]

Okay. Thanks, guys.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thanks, Pete.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Scott Mikus with Melius Research.

[Scott Mikus, Analyst at Melius Research]

Morning, Eric and Victor. Very good results. Seems like there's a lot of demand across all your verticals. We also saw Deputy Secretary of Defense, Steve Feinberg, issue a memo asking defense companies to accelerate productions of various defense programs. Just curious how you're thinking about organic investments within the business, and particularly CapEx, given that your customers are asking you to expedite shipments, but your backlog continues to grow.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah. So as a general rule of thumb, this is not leading to a material change in our CapEx. Fortunately, the things we make and the way we make them, they tend to be smaller incremental items, like a spectrum analyzer or a few pieces of test equipment or a paint booth or something like that. There are some instances where we will invest more, but if you look at our CapEx, we're spending, what, about a point and a half on CapEx. I don't see that rising materially, and if it got up to 2%, that would still be pretty manageable or extremely manageable for us. We are committed to making the investments that are needed. We will do that. We've made that very clear to our customers. At this point, as I said, I emphasize that I don't see that being a Herculean task.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

If there are ones that do require a much larger investment and we feel like our customers or somebody should contribute to that, then of course we won't have any reservations about seeking that.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

I would also add, without going into specifics, that we are big supporters of what the administration is trying to do and get more product out there. We're working very hard. We've got a number of teams very much focused on this. There are certain areas where we are going ahead and making the capital expenditure, where we have a very high degree of confidence of the level of business. We're, if you will, taking the risk to make sure that we're able to supply the product when the customer needs it. I think that our customers are extremely happy about that.

[Scott Mikus, Analyst at Melius Research]

Okay. Then to follow up on Noah's question earlier on acquisitions and the potential size of deals, we've seen a lot of aerospace defense IPOs break their IPO prices. Has that caused any shift in the M&A pipeline for sponsors that were thinking about taking assets public or maybe thinking about pursuing a sale to a company like HEICO that is usually an acquirer of choice?

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah, listen, I don't think it's had a material impact on the number of companies we're seeing and the desires of sellers. Most don't want to get into sort of within private equity situations. But it certainly has influenced valuations. And valuations, as you know, have increased in the sector. And that's something that we deal with. We've dealt with it successfully. But I would say that would probably be the most pronounced impact.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Also my sense is that, if some of these don't go well or don't go as well as expected, that could be future opportunity for HEICO.

[Scott Mikus, Analyst at Melius Research]

All right. Thank you.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from David Strauss with Wells Fargo.

[Josh Korn, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hi, good morning. This is Josh Korn for David. Wanted to ask if you could speak a little bit about what the margins look like on some of the revenues from the recent acquisitions. Thanks.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

Do you want me to take it? Yeah. We generally don't disaggregate down to the sub-level of margins. I will tell you that when we make acquisitions, our expectations are that, most of the deals we close, the EBITDA margin needs to be 20% or greater. That's sort of a gating factor in our thesis or our analysis of acquisitions. That's about as far down the food chain as we get on discussing margins at the subsidiary level. Our starting point anyhow.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

One of the things we can tell you is that typically, acquisitions have intangible amortization attached to it. So obviously that can typically push down sometimes the reported margin.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

Yeah.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah.

[Josh Korn, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay. Thank you.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Not on the EBITDA or EBITA level, but the operating income margin.

[Josh Korn, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay. Thank you. I will stick to just one.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from René Plessner with René Plessner Associates.

[René Plessner, Shareholder at René Plessner Associates]

Hello?

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Hello. Good morning, René.

[René Plessner, Shareholder at René Plessner Associates]

Good morning. How are you? Excellent results. I just wanted to call in because I did a little homework. In all of 1995, HEICO earned $2.7 million. In the latest nine months, it earned $659 million. That's 244x as much profit, and the year isn't finished. I bought it in 1995. Cash flow was $7 million versus today, $816 million in only nine months. If the future is going to follow the same playbook, Eric, that you referred to, I hope I live another 30 years. That's my statement for the day.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Well, we hope you live another 30 years as well. And I hope for the same thing for me at least. Thank you very much, and for the rest of the people on this call who don't know Mr. Plessner, Mr. Plessner is an individual investor who in 1994 really started learning about the company, invested in 1995, and added to his holdings over the years despite the advice from a lot of financial experts who said you need to diversify. He is actually a very large shareholder in the company, and has always been committed to it. And he's made his money in it, I won't say how much, but it's obviously a huge sum. Sorry for saying everybody, but, obviously a huge sum.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

He's made it by believing in the business and following this, the same approach, the same way we do it, believing in the people and the business, the long term, and not getting too wrapped up in any momentary movement in either direction. We thank you for being one of the smartest investors I've ever met.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

René, this is Eric. I add my thanks and gratitude as well, for your support and confidence and friendship over many decades. To answer specifically your question, I remember talking to you about it 30 something years ago, and we had a dream on what we could do.

[René Plessner, Shareholder at René Plessner Associates]

Right.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

We thought we were responsive, and we found some opportunities where we could really help the airlines, that we could build something. It turned out to be obviously even more successful than we had dreamt at the time. I can tell you that our customers universally want to buy more from HEICO. The reason they aren't currently buying more from HEICO is we only have so much to offer them. Frankly, we had a sales meeting last week, and somebody stood up and said, "People aren't buying from our competitors because they want to buy from our competitors." Nobody starts out their day saying they want to buy from HEICO's competitors. The vast majority of our customers start their day wanting to buy more from us.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

It's because of our people, our quality, our pricing, and frankly, the vision that we had to build a long-term business, not a one and done, or where you run up the stock and run out the door, that kind of thing. We wanted to build a serious industrial company that was going to last for generations. I can tell you we're well on the way. Who knows what the future holds? I can tell you that the three of us at this table and our leadership and the 13,000 people at HEICO are really, really excited about the future. I thank you for your support and comment and friendship.

[René Plessner, Shareholder at René Plessner Associates]

Thank you. Thank you, and go on to your next caller, and today's a great day.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[René Plessner, Shareholder at René Plessner Associates]

Talk to you guys soon.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you, René.

[René Plessner, Shareholder at René Plessner Associates]

You are welcome.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you. Thanks.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Gavin Parsons with UBS.

[Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS]

Good morning. That is a tough one to follow. I guess in a more trivial pursuit, it sounds like repair is still growing a good amount slower. Eric, is that the supply chain bottlenecks you talked about last quarter? Any color there would be great.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

I am glad you mentioned that, Gavin. That is also a big issue for us, the ability to get parts in various areas. When you have a component and you could have 99 parts, but you are waiting for the final part, you cannot ship it. There is definitely a backlog about that throughout our businesses. That also has definitely had an impact on the component repair space. Thank you for highlighting that.

[Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS]

Is that improving, or has that actually gotten worse?

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

I would say it's consistent. Not materially better. It's gotten better in some areas. The problems that we had a year ago, in general, are not problems today, but other things have popped up. As a result, it remains definitely a major headache for the industry and definitely has impacted those revenues.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

Gavin, this is Carlos. Keep in mind, the gross margin on that business has been expanding, and even though the revenue growth, you have to remember that as we flood these repairs, component repairs consume a lot of parts, as Eric just pointed out. As we are able to populate those repairs with more PMA product, the top-line revenue does not grow as fast because we're offering a higher value proposition to our customers. The profitability on that job grows. One thing that we've been experiencing in our repair business is a little lighter top-line revenue growth because we're not passing through the exorbitant cost of OEM product onto our customers. We're trying to do these repairs as much as we can with PMA, which has a lower sales price, but it's a much more profitable venture for us.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

I actually think that this pattern will continue. If it does, we'll be very happy for that because, again, it's more cash to HEICO shareholders in that relationship versus passing on OEM product through the sales and charging a higher price. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's the phenomenon going on right now in that business.

[Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS]

Yep. Okay. Thanks. That's very helpful. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

And we'll take our next question from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Hello, Kristine?

[Shaina Zuber, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hi.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

It seems like.

[Shaina Zuber, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hi, can you hear me?

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yes, now we can.

[Shaina Zuber, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Sorry about that. This is Shaina Zuber on for Kristine. Thanks for taking my question. Just to double click on air traffic a little bit, there's been a lot of focus this year on how commercial aftermarket would hold up. Obviously, this and last quarter's results display significant growth despite these concerns. But in the last couple of months of data, we're starting to see RPKs dip a little bit on a year-over-year basis. If we continue to see this, is there a point at which you'd expect to start seeing this flow through to impact the commercial side of the business?

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah, thus far, we haven't seen that. The other thing is when RPKs do slow down, airlines get even more serious about cost savings. So that will be a mitigating factor. But certainly, if the number of flights is down, then the demand for parts would follow. But I'd point out we've got so much unsold potential and so much opportunity out there that we typically mitigate that much better than most in the industry. Again, we haven't seen that to date.

[Shaina Zuber, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thanks. That's it from me.

[Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Gautam Khanna with TD Cowen.

[Barrett Taylor, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Hi, good morning. This is Barrett Taylor on for Gautam. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if the DoD has approached the HEICO team directly regarding the right to repair and build to print initiatives, and could you provide any insight on how involved industry participants have been in those discussions? Thanks.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Yeah, I can say that we're very aware of what's going on. I wouldn't want to get into any specific conversations. But again, we do think that there's very good opportunity for HEICO in this area. You know all the reasons why, so I think it's best probably just to leave it at that. But thank you very much.

[Barrett Taylor, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Okay, great. Thank you. Congrats on the quarter.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Matt Akers with BNP Paribas.

[Matt Akers, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for the question.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Good morning.

[Matt Akers, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Can you touch on working capital? I mean, to your point, your free cash flow has been very solid, even though working capital has been a bit of a drag year to date. Should we expect that to continue as you keep growing here, or is there an opportunity for some more working capital efficiencies there?

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

I mean, this is Carlos. Matt, working capital at HEICO is going to grow commensurate with our organic growth. It's been kind of the pattern. We do have some strategic investment in inventories to deal with customer demands and backlogs. So you saw that elevated this quarter. I expect working capital will not be any different in Q4 than what we saw this quarter. I think we'll have continued little bit of use of cash for working capital to fill backlog and demand and nothing unusual other than that going on.

[Matt Akers, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Okay, great. Thanks. I'll leave it at one.

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

The only other thing I would point out on our operating cash flows, I've mentioned on prior calls, is that we do have a payment going out to the estate of our past chairman and CEO, and that probably will have a $70 million-$75 million drag on operating cash flows in Q4. We've talked about it before. I just point that out. I don't know if it's working capital related, but it is related to our operating cash flows in the fourth quarter. So please keep that in mind as you're doing your modeling.

[Matt Akers, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Louis Raffetto with Wolfe Research.

[Louis Raffetto, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hey, good morning, guys.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Good morning.

[Louis Raffetto, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Maybe Victor, Eric, just to follow up on John's earlier question on the sort of the other end markets and sort of some of the opportunities you see there. Do you see those markets having the same margin opportunity as in aerospace?

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Some do, and I think some, it's a mix, but they can. It all depends on the products. But we have some very strong margins in the industrial tech segment. Also, in particular, in industrial gas turbine, there's a lot of opportunity for us in that space as well. Basically, the same technology as you know, Louis, and we really don't have the fixed costs associated with it.

[Louis Raffetto, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Great. Thank you. Then maybe, Carlos, just one for you. The interest expense in the quarter, did that include incremental costs from the debt issuance?

[Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO at HEICO]

It did. With the debt issuance costs and then the amortization of the cost related to the line of credit, that all went through interest this quarter.

[Louis Raffetto, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

All right, perfect. Thank you.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you.

[Operator]

At this time, I will turn the conference to Victor Mendelson for any additional or closing remarks.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

Thank you very much. We thank everybody for being on the call with us. For the remainder of fiscal 2026, we expect increased net sales at both the Flight Support Group and Electronic Technologies Group to continue to be supported by underlying demand for our products and contributions from recent acquisitions. As for those acquisitions, we remain focused on identifying and evaluating the acquisition opportunities that align with our strategic objectives. Our capital allocation strategy will prioritize those investments in organic growth and acquisitions while preserving adequate liquidity and financial flexibility. As you heard, that acquisition activity remains extremely robust for us. As always, though, we will remain disciplined and only pursue acquisitions that meet our strategic and financial criteria that we believe will create meaningful long-term value for our shareholders.

[Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO at HEICO]

With that, we end the call, and we look forward to talking with you on our next call. Should you have questions in the interim, you all know where to reach us. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Eric Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO
• Victor Mendelson, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO
• Carlos Macau, EVP and CFO

Analysts

• Larry Solow, Analyst at CJS Securities
• Noah Poponak, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Peter Arment, Analyst at Baird
• Sheila Kahyaoglu, Analyst at Jefferies
• John Godyn, Analyst at Citigroup
• Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America
• Sebastian Rivera, Analyst at Stifel
• Pete Skibitski, Analyst at Alembic Global
• Scott Mikus, Analyst at Melius Research
• Josh Korn, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• René Plessner, Shareholder at René Plessner Associates
• Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS
• Shaina Zuber, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Barrett Taylor, Analyst at TD Cowen
• Matt Akers, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Louis Raffetto, Analyst at Wolfe Research