CW

I would now like to turn the call over to Jim Ryan, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Leo. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Curtiss-Wright's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Bamford, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Chris Farkas. A copy of today's financial presentation and the press release are available for download through the investor relations section of our website at curtisswright.com. A replay of this webcast will also be available on the website. Our discussion today includes certain projections and forward-looking statements that are based on management's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance. We detail those risks and uncertainties associated with our forward-looking statements in our public filings with the SEC. As a reminder, the company's results and guidance include an adjusted non-GAAP view that excludes certain costs in order to provide greater transparency into Curtiss-Wright's ongoing operating and financial performance.

GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations are available in the earnings release and on our website. I'd like to turn the call over to Lynn to get things started.

Thank you, Jim. Good morning, everyone. We had a highly productive start to 2026. We delivered a strong first quarter performance that exceeded our expectations as we demonstrated exceptional operating results reflecting higher growth in revenue and operating income across all three segments. We continue to compound sustained profitable growth, I'm pleased with the team's steadfast focus on innovation, where we are driving incremental investments in research and development to support a number of critical pursuits across our end markets. These investments, along with the continued growth in our order book, better position us to accelerate the pace of long-term organic growth. We also continue to have strong alignment with leading industry growth sectors, which has been further reinforced by improving underlying demand and industry fundamentals across our A&D, commercial nuclear, and industrial markets. The momentum continues to build across Curtiss-Wright's portfolio.

Based on the strong start, we raised our full year 2026 outlook, which provides us with confidence that we will exceed our overall Investor Day targets and continue to deliver strong results for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn to today's presentation. Starting with the highlights of our first quarter 2026 results, sales of $914 million grew 13% year-over-year, while operating income once again exceeded our sales growth, resulting in 100 basis points of overall operating margin expansion. Of note, our results reflected higher year-over-year sales across all our major end markets. Diluted earnings per share grew 23% year-over-year, slightly ahead of our expectations and primarily driven by our strong growth in A&D sales.

Regarding our order book, new orders increased 16%, reflecting a 1.3x book-to-bill ratio driven by mid-teens growth in each of our three segments. I'll cover some of the key highlights. Starting in Defense, where we're pleased to see the overall improved pace of order activity, which is a testament to Curtiss-Wright's long-standing alignment to U.S. and allied military priorities. Digging deeper and starting with Defense Electronics segment, the team delivered the best performance since the third quarter of 2024 and is making great strides to move past the delays caused by the prior continuing resolution and 2025 government shutdown. Notable wins during the quarter range from the mission computer upgrades supporting the C-17 cockpit modernization to various awards supporting next-generation helicopter platforms and programs, along with increased activity for some of our short-cycle businesses, including tactical communications.

Overall, our pipeline of opportunities for these businesses remains strong. Our programs remain in good standing, and the improved demand to begin the year provides us with increased confidence to deliver on our full year objectives. In the Naval & Power segment, which delivered a 1.5x book-to-bill ratio, we experienced continued strong demand for nuclear propulsion equipment supporting the U.S. Navy's current and next-generation submarine programs. We also continued to benefit from increased demand for our commercial nuclear aftermarket products. Lastly, within the A&I segment, I would like to highlight the improvement in our order book for industrial vehicles, which has now delivered 2 strong quarters in a row and is contributing to increased optimism in our general industrial market relative to our 2026 guide.

Overall, based on the healthy growth in Curtiss-Wright's order book, we reached a new record of nearly $4.3 billion, which provides us with great visibility and continued confidence in our future top-line growth. Regarding our full year 2026 guidance, we have raised our overall outlook for sales, operating margin, earnings per share, and free cash flow, and remain well positioned to deliver strong operational performance this year. Of note, we now expect overall sales to increase 7%-8%, driven by improved outlooks in our defense and commercial nuclear markets, and further supported by the overall strength of our order book.

We continue to expect that operating income growth will outpace sales growth and now anticipate an increase of 40 to 60 basis points in operating margin in pursuit of a record 19%-19.2%. As a result, diluted EPS is now expected to grow 13%-16%. In addition, we raised our free cash flow guide to reflect higher confidence in the full year outlook, and we continue to expect strong conversion in line with our long-term targets. Overall, we are pleased with the strong growth in revenues and profitability to begin the year, and we're strategically positioned to deliver another outstanding performance in 2026. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Chris to provide a more in-depth review of our financials.

Thank you, Lynn. Turning to slide four, I'll begin by reviewing the key drivers of our 1st quarter 2026 performance by segment. Starting in aerospace and industrial, overall sales increased 12%, which exceeded our expectations. Beginning with the segment's defense markets, which drove the outperformance, our results reflected higher sales of actuation and sensors equipment supporting various U.S. and European fighter jet programs, as well as increased demand for EM actuation equipment supporting ground-based mobile launcher systems. Within the segment's commercial aerospace market, we experienced solid OEM sales growth supporting increased production on both narrow body and wide body platforms. In the general industrial market, the steady improvements in our order book, primarily attributed to increased demand for industrial vehicle products, contributed to solid mid-single-digit growth in sales.

Regarding the segment's first quarter operating performance, operating income and margin were ahead of expectations, growing 24% and 150 basis points respectively, driven by favorable absorption on higher revenues, restructuring savings and favorable mix. In the Defense Electronics segment, overall sales increased 5%, which was slightly ahead of our expectations. Within the segment's aerospace defense market, we experienced higher domestic sales of embedded computing equipment supporting various aircraft modernization programs, as well as higher direct foreign military sales of embedded computing and flight data recorders serving NATO and allied countries. Ground defense market sales were flat as increased Turret Drive Stabilization Systems supporting international programs were offset by lower sales of tactical communications equipment.

Regarding the segment's operating performance, we delivered a strong first quarter operating margin of 28.1%, up 60 basis points year-over-year, reflecting favorable absorption and mix on higher revenues. Moving to the Naval & Power segment, sales growth of 21% exceeded our expectations. This was due to stronger than expected revenue growth in Naval Defense associated with the accelerated ramp-up in production on submarine programs. We also experienced a solid uplift in aftermarket revenues supporting naval shipyards through fleet services work and overhaul programs. Within the segment's Aerospace Defense market, our results reflected strong growth in revenues for arresting systems to international customers. In the Power and Process market, overall, we experienced high teens year-over-year growth in revenues.

This was mainly driven by strong growth in the commercial nuclear market, supporting maintenance and life extensions at operating plants across North America, in addition to increased revenues supporting advanced small modular reactors. Regarding the segment's operating performance, operating income grew 33%, generating 140 basis points in operating margin expansion, principally reflecting favorable absorption on the better-than-expected growth in sales as well as favorable mix. To sum up Curtiss-Wright's first quarter results, we generated a strong operating margin of 17.6%, driving 100 basis points in operating margin expansion on the better-than-expected top-line performance. Turning to our full year 2026 guidance, I'll begin on slide five with our end market sales outlook, where we now anticipate total sales to grow 7%-8%.

Starting in aerospace defense, we now expect full year sales growth of 11%-13%, benefiting from increased sales of actuation and sensors equipment supporting domestic and international fighter jet programs, as well as increased demand for Defense Electronics. Within ground defense, while we were pleased to see the overall improvement in Defense Electronics order book, we continue to take a conservative approach in tactical communications resulting from the FY 2026 budget delays. As a result, our outlook in this market remains unchanged. Aside from those timing delays, we continue to expect increased EM actuation sales supporting the U.S. Army's IFPC program and increased demand for Turret Drive Stabilization Systems supporting international ground vehicle programs through our relationship with Rheinmetall.

In naval defense, following the strong first quarter results, we now expect full year sales growth of 6%-8%, mainly due to expectations for higher production revenue on submarine programs while we continue to project solid growth on the CVN-81 aircraft carrier program. In addition, we anticipate solid growth in aircraft handling equipment revenues supporting various international programs. Looking more broadly across all three defense markets, we expect direct foreign military sales to grow 10% this year, slightly ahead of our prior expectations, driven by the alignment of our technologies to global defense spending priorities. Moving to commercial aerospace, our outlook for 10%-12% sales growth remains unchanged and continues to reflect our strong backlog supporting the anticipated ramp-up in OEM production across the major narrow body and wide body platforms.

Wrapping up our aerospace and defense outlook, we now expect total sales in these markets to increase 6%-8%. Moving to our Commercial Markets and Power and Process, we now expect full year sales to increase 13%-15%, mainly due to the continued underlying strength of our order book within Commercial Nuclear. We now expect to deliver mid-to-high teens growth in sales this year. Shifting to the Process Market, we continue to project strong growth in sales, which we anticipate will more prominently benefit our second half results based on the higher sales of MRO valves and instrumentation solutions. Lastly, in General Industrial, we continue to take a cautious approach in this market and anticipate sales to be flat in 2026.

We're encouraged by the more recent improvements in the order book and remain cautiously optimistic that we'll see a return to growth as we approach 2027. Wrapping up our total commercial markets, we now expect total sales in these markets to increase 8%-10%. Moving on to our updated full year 2026 financial outlook by segment on slide six. I'll begin in Aerospace and Industrial, where we now expect sales to grow 6%-8%, driven by the strong first quarter performance in the segment's defense markets, continued growth in the order book, and the anticipated ramp up in commercial aerospace OEM production. Regarding the segment's profitability, operating income is now projected to grow 13%-15% and drive operating margin expansion of 100-120 basis points ranging from 18.4%-18.6%.

In addition to the improved top-line guide, this outlook reflects the ongoing benefits of our operational excellence and restructuring initiatives more than offsetting higher year-over-year investments in development programs. Shifting to Defense Electronics, where we continue to expect sales to grow 4%-6%, principally driven by strong growth in aerospace defense and partially offset by the timing of our orders and revenues in ground defense. Regarding the segment's profitability, we continue to expect operating income growth of 4%-6%, and we remain on track to deliver record levels of operating margin at 27.3%-27.5%. In Naval & Power, based on the continued strength of our orders and backlog in both our naval defense and commercial nuclear markets, we now expect sales to grow 9%-11%.

Regarding the segment's profitability, we now expect operating income growth of 13%-15% and operating margin expansion of 40 to 60 basis points, with this uplift mainly driven by the stronger revenue outlook. As a reminder, this outlook reflects the savings generated by our restructuring actions as well as continued investments in both internal and customer-funded development programs. To summarize our 2026 outlook, overall, we now anticipate total Curtiss-Wright operating income to grow 9%-12% and expect operating margin to range from 19%-19.2%, up 40 to 60 basis points as we lifted the bottom end of the range to reflect our increased confidence.

Next, to aid in your quarterly modeling of sales and operating margin, we expect overall second quarter 2026 sales to grow by mid-single digits, while also targeting high single digits plus growth in operating income, both relative to the second quarter of 2025. Of note, within our A&I and Naval & Power segments, we anticipate strong year-over-year growth in sales resulting in improved second quarter profitability, while we expect both sales and profitability within the Defense Electronics segment to be in line with last year's Q2 results. In summary, at the overall Curtiss-Wright level, we expect modest year-over-year improvement in profitability to result in a high teen second quarter operating margin. We expect this to be followed by strong second half operating margin expansion, keeping us on track to deliver record results this year.

Continuing with our financial outlook on slide seven and starting with our EPS guidance, building upon our strong first quarter performance, we now expect full year 2026 diluted EPS to range from $14.90-$15.30, up 13%-16%, reflecting improved sales and profitability within our A&I and Naval & Power segments. To aid in your quarterly EPS modeling, we expect second quarter 2026 EPS to grow by low double digits relative to the second quarter of 2025. We then expect modest sequential EPS growth over the remainder of the year, with the fourth quarter EPS being our strongest. Lastly, turning to free cash flow.

Overall, we were pleased with the strong start to the year. That provided us with increased confidence to raise our full-year free cash flow projections to a new range and record of $580 million-$600 million, up 5%-8% over 2025. This outlook continues to reflect our expectations for strong growth in earnings and a record level of working capital below 18%, while overcoming a nearly 30% year-over-year increase in growth investments through capital expenditures. We are confidently executing while continuing to deliver a free cash flow conversion rate of approximately 105% again this year. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Lynn.

Thank you, Chris. Turning to slide eight. I would like to conclude today's prepared remarks by highlighting how we are accelerating momentum across Curtiss-Wright's portfolio through our strategic initiatives and our alignment with industry growth drivers, positioning the company for long-term financial success. As we have discussed today, our strong execution to begin the year, combined with our growing order book and strength of our backlog, reinforces our ability to deliver record financial results across our major metrics. This outlook is underpinned by increased sales in the majority of our end markets, while we're also targeting a record level of profitability with overall operating margin at or above 19%. The team is focused on driving margin expansion through an unwavering commitment to operational and commercial excellence while continuing to accelerate investments in R&D and infrastructure to support future organic growth.

We continue to be successful under our operational growth platform as we sustain Curtiss-Wright's stature as a top quartile margin performer relative to our peers. We are also compounding earnings at a mid-teens pace over time by pairing that focused operational execution with our commitment to a balanced capital allocation strategy. Curtiss-Wright remains strategically aligned with many favorable secular growth trends across our markets. Starting in defense, Curtiss-Wright is firmly anchored across the most critical current and next-generation platforms and programs to be funded within the U.S. Department of Defense budget. Our technologies are trusted on over 400 platforms and 3,000 programs worldwide.

Building off of a strong and funded base of approximately $1 trillion in the FY 2026 NDAA, we're pleased to see the upsized levels to a historic level of $1.5 trillion issued in the President's budget request this past month. In naval defense, we remained aligned with a strong drive for accelerated production across the U.S. Navy's major platforms as well as investments in the next-generation SSN(X) submarine. Similarly, within our aerospace and ground defense businesses, we maintain strong alignment to the DoD's top strategic priorities, including tactical aircraft modernization, next-gen air superiority, radar and strategic missile defense, and Golden Dome, just to name a few. All of these areas have received increased requests for funding in the FY 2027 budget.

Equally important, we are making focused investments in R&D to further advance our technology and ensure we maintain strong positions across our entire defense portfolio. Our NATO allies continue to strengthen their operational readiness by targeting record levels of defense spending. We continue to solidify our positions with technologies such as Turret Drive Stabilization System, embedded computing and tactical communications, and both ground and naval arresting systems. Turning to commercial nuclear, Curtiss-Wright's extensive portfolio of aftermarket technologies support the continued performance, safety and modernization of operating reactors worldwide, where we have content on every reactor across North America and South Korea. We remain aligned with plant operators in their incremental investments in plant extensions, power upgrades, and modernization. In the U.S., we have seen an increased pace in number of plants receiving NRC approval for subsequent license renewals.

Thus far, 23 reactors have been approved to extend their operating license, up from nine reactors at the beginning of last year, with the most recent SLR completed in a record time and in less than 12 months. Similarly, in Canada, we continue to support modernization of reactors progressing through major component replacement programs to extend the life of their plant. We are also committed to supporting the construction of new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors expected to be built in the U.S., Poland, Bulgaria, Canada, and other locations globally. While not included in our current year guidance, we still anticipate an order for our reactor coolant pumps this year. In addition to large light water reactors, we continue to grow our relationships and secure content across leading 300 MW+ SMR designs.

Our strategy ensures we will be engaged regardless of who is participating in the SMR race, which will ultimately support a number of winners. We expect SMRs to be a meaningful contributor to our revenue growth in 2026 and beyond. As we highlighted yesterday, one of those driving forces is our strong position on the X-energy advanced reactor, where we have transitioned from design to prototype manufacturing of both the Helium Circulator and the Reactivity Control and Shutdown Systems as we continue to support the advancement of their next-generation reactor. Overall, we have a clear path to capturing tremendous growth in our commercial nuclear power business, and I'm confident in our ability to capitalize on the robust industry growth that lies ahead.

Within commercial aerospace, we continue to build upon our strong core positions and alignment to the OEM production ramps across Boeing and Airbus platforms and support our customers' growing backlogs. Over the next years, the elevated growth trajectory based on increased rates of narrow body and wide body production will provide us with durable opportunities for growth. At the same time, we expect that our continued investments in critical technologies and highly engineered components will bolster our ability to capture new positions and expand our portfolio across both current and next-generation platforms. Shifting to industrial. Earlier, I spoke about the improved order momentum that continues to build in these businesses.

This reflects our ability to grow our leadership positions while simultaneously investing in technologies that advance customer efficiency, performance, and safety. This in turn, together with the team's ability to successfully navigate global macroeconomic pressures, mitigate the impact of tariffs, and identify opportunities to drive pricing and cost containment initiatives, has enabled us to routinely overcome industry headwinds in this market. Overall, across all our end markets, we continue to take necessary steps to ensure Curtiss-Wright remains aligned with the fastest growth vectors and that we are well-positioned to capitalize on the needs of our customers, both today and well into the future. Turning to the bottom section of the slide, we are intensely focused on leveraging the full breadth of Curtiss-Wright's financial resources to maximize our returns across numerous investment opportunities.

We are driving record levels of free cash flow, and we are doing so while investing in critical technologies at an accelerated pace across the portfolio. In 2026, we are ramping up our investments in people, systems, and capacity to drive increased throughput across our naval businesses and also in anticipation of future commercial nuclear awards. Overall, we have and remain very focused on efficient capital deployment. Finally, Curtiss-Wright maintains a very healthy balance sheet, and we have remained extremely disciplined in our approach to capital allocation, continuing to strategically pursue acquisitions as our top priority in order to further accelerate top and bottom line growth. Beyond this, we look to further balance that allocation and sustain our strong track record and commitment to return capital to shareholders.

In closing, I'm excited about Curtiss-Wright's numerous prospects for growth, and we look forward to delivering another record financial performance this year as we continue to drive long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you. At this time, I would like to open up today's conference call for questions.

The floor is now open for questions at this time if you have question please press star one on your telephone keypad if your question is answered you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two . We ask that you pick up your handset when posing your questions to provide optimal sound quality. Again, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, and then queue up again with any additional. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Lynn, Chris, and Jim.

Good morning.

You know, your pivot to growth has been very successful, you're seeing that with your strong book-to-bill of 1.3x in the quarter. You know, we're seeing very strong demand signals from customers. I guess when we look at the industry as a whole, U.S. defense primes have a record backlog of over $500 billion, their ability has been gated by the supply chain. You guys have been executing fairly flawlessly the past few years. Lynn, you highlighted, you know, that you're interested in also doing more deals. Are there specific areas when you look at that broader ecosystem where you see gating factors that are pretty high ROI? Is that an area that you would be interested in doing more M&A? Any color you could provide here would be really helpful.

That's a great question, Kristine Liwag, and thank you for joining us today. You know, we are well positioned very broadly across both, you know, all three branches of the U.S. Department of Defense and have a great footprint in NATO. I feel like we're very well-positioned. You know, from a ROI standpoint, obviously, our Defense Electronics team continues to, you know, really deliver very strong results for our shareholders. That's always when we talk about M&A and where we're interested in pursuing targets. You know, they usually remain at the top of the list. We know how to buy businesses there, integrate them. Even if their profitability, which, you know, we were very open with PacStar as an example, our last acquisition there, was well below the segment's margins.

You know, we've had outstanding performance with that team, and it continues to grow and expand its footprint, both here in the U.S. and really some early days traction internationally, which is exciting to see. That is always a focus where, you know, we very much appreciate the tone out of the Department of Defense with wanting to have more commercial acquisition, be more willing to do second sources, dual sourcing equipment. First and foremost, that's a good reminder us we need to be a great supplier into our customers, and that is a big focus for us, and we don't take that for granted. We're not perfect, so there's always areas we can improve. That's also an area where we are making ourselves clear to the Navy.

We're very open to being considered to become a second source in some of those areas. When we think of our scaling in the naval business, when you look at our MIB funding going from $15 million three years ago to $60 million now, that's indicative of where the Navy wants us to go and our ability to be a vital part of their supply chain. That is one. We're also looking more broadly across our aerospace and defense areas where there's critical aerospace technologies that, especially the things that we can take both to the commercial space and the military space.

That's one of our strategies that drives our ROIC in the company, is having technologies we invest in for one end market, but then leveraging the breadth of our end markets to be able to take the same core investments and spread them across. Aerospace is a great place to do that, definitely an area where we're interested. You know, our last two acquisitions were in commercial nuclear. We continue to look. There's less targets out there in that space, you know, we found two, who's not to say we won't find more? That's another area where we continue to look. You know, we're really looking, you know We consider, you know, how we look at things as, you know, we have KPIs that we're very focused on, you have to look at that in balance.

I don't know, Chris, if you'd add anything from a financial perspective in how we think about that.

Sure. Yeah. I would just kind of note in the current environment, I mean, there's a good amount of competition for acquisition targets that are out there right now. There's a scarcity of high-quality strategic assets, and that in turn is driving, you know, out some elevated multiples. You know, we are very stringently applying our strategic and financial filters as we're looking at books in the process. We're generating a significant amount of free cash flow. We're continuing to invest in our organic growth. You know, you can see from the health of our balance sheet, I mean, we've deployed $2.5 billion towards acquisitions since we began the pivot to growth. You know, despite this, our leverage is approaching record lows. We've got a fully untapped revolver, $3 billion of borrowing capacity today.

you know, as we look at financial acquisition targets from a financial lens, you know, we're looking for businesses that can really be accretive, you know, to our core KPI growth rates over time. You know, revenue, operating margin, EPS, free cash flow, and ROIC. You know, I think, you know, this in combination with the market environment, you know, it's important to note that not every asset is gonna be immediately accretive to all KPIs. We'll balance those strengths and opportunities in various ways against the full portfolio and generate improvement over time, as we've done successfully, you know, for many years.

Great. Super helpful color. If I could follow up on margins. You know, the company, you guys have done a lot of restructuring, and we see that benefit with your record margins here. I guess, as the Department of Defense wants to shift more towards more commercial terms, I mean, I presume, is that more margin accretive for you in the long run? Also, I guess, you know, it's a broader margin question as we think about demand from international customers also coming in. I would also presume that would be higher margin. You know, it'd be great to get, you know, your views on those long-term drivers. Also, within the defense ecosystem, you're seeing more players like Anduril, like non-traditional player come into the industry.

How does that shift, the margin opportunity for a supplier like you, where you've got, you know, pretty core capabilities that could be used by the incumbents and the new, and you've got these new shifts, in contracting approach. Is this good for margins in the long run?

We feel confident about and comfortable where we are. You know, this year, we're not gonna speak beyond this year, but are continued to expand margins this year. You can see that's across our portfolio, you know, including some uplift in our Defense businesses. I really, you know, as a team, we like to think of it with delivering value. You know, we spend over half of our internal IR&D is spent in our Defense Electronics portfolio.

We have brought some outstanding capabilities to the market that are really unique to a product offering in Curtiss-Wright around, you know, some of the capabilities with a variety of NVIDIA-based products from, you know, things that use the Blackwell 5000 down to products that, you know, leverage the four that are much more size, weight, power oriented. You know, really having that, our Fabric100 capability, which is unique to Curtiss-Wright, you know, the Microsoft Azure offering that we have. From our perspective, we're very targeted at delivering technology excellence to our customer base, and that goes hand in hand with the value you can ask for those products. We just, you know, keep our eye on solving the hardest, most critical problems that our customers have and believe we will be comfortable.

We work with the non-traditional primes. We have active engagements with many of them. You know, there's places our products fit and places our products don't fit, so we're not, we don't have applicable products to, you know, all of them. You know, the things that we build are complicated and hard and take lots of investments and long periods of time, especially around the Defense Electronics, not, you know, setting aside all the submarine work and such like that. You know, they're in a foot race, for them to be able to acquire products from us is really, fits hand in hand with their value proposition. I think we're in a very solid place for where we are, you know, regarding margins and our ability to continue to grow.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll move on now to Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. This is Greg Badishkanian on for Myles. I was just hoping to follow up on the X-energy announcement. You know, shifting from design to prototyping work, can you just give us a context of how much of the announced ship set content this allows you to recognize? Maybe frame how large SMR revenue is in 2026?

It's not really our place to talk about what exactly the content is we're prototyping with X-energy. You know, we've been very open and said our content is $120 million per reactor. You know, we only mentioned two of the three major subsystems that have moved to prototyping, so it's obviously below that. We're not, and I will be open, we're not prototyping the full complement of what an end reactor would be, but it's still great and meaningful revenue for Curtiss-Wright. We're underway with that. You know, there's also some things we need to do from an infrastructure and test fixtures and stuff to be able to prepare to be able to do that testing. It's good, a good revenue driver for this year.

Leave it to Chris to talk about maybe any specifics he'd be comfortable giving.

Sure. I would just say embedded within that, you know, mid-to-high teens organic growth, you know, guide that we're giving for commercial nuclear. You know, you've got aftermarket, you're coming in at approximately low double digits. I mean, we're seeing a lot of global strength, you know, related to that business. You know, also there's a very strong ramp up in SMR revenues for the development transition to the initial prototyping phase. You know, last year it was roughly 10% of our commercial nuclear revenues. You know, this year with the guidance, we're targeting 12% of our commercial nuclear revenue. A pretty sizable, and growing improvement for a smaller part of our overall commercial nuclear portfolio today.

Great. Thank you. I just wanted to touch on Defense Electronics bookings real quick. It sounded like things were good in 1Q based on your commentary, and the short cycle tactical comms work was accelerating. Can you share your expectations for 2Q book-to-bill, maybe, just given the context of the ground defense end market reiterated for the full year?

Yeah, I mean, maybe I'll just kind of back up a little bit before I kind of dive into Q2. You know, Lynn mentioned in her comments, you know, some of the changing government structure and budget delays we faced this last year. On the last call, we said once that was resolved, we expected we'd see a normal flow in approximately 60 to 90 days, which would put most of that at the time into the April and May timeframe. I think broadly, across Defense Electronics, that held true. We had the best order quarter for that business dating back to Q3 of 2024. Also in Q1, you know, Lynn mentioned we received, you know, several of those orders that we had expected in 2025, including the C-17 and tactical comms and strategic deterrence.

The Q1 order book was up 18% year-over-year. We had a book-to-bill that was, you know, near 1.1x. I'll also say that, you know, as we're looking at the April order update right now, we're seeing an improvement of 46% year-over-year for that month. We're really off to a great start here in the second quarter. You know, we're expecting another good order quarter here in Q2. I will say that you heard in our prepared remarks that there will be some pressure on the second quarter revenue. I think we forecasted that and discussed that a little bit on the last call as well.

What's fortunate for us with some of these delays is many of the businesses here that are impacted are shorter cycle in nature, and we've been taking steps to ensure that we can convert those orders into revenue as quickly as possible, and that gives us confidence in the full year guidance.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll move on now to Nathan Jones with Stifel. Your line is open.

Morning, everyone.

Hey, Nathan.

Morning, Nathan.

I guess I'll start with a question on industrial vehicles. It's not one we talk about too much. It's obviously been a tough market over the last few years for industrial vehicles. It does seem like that market overall has kind of topped out here and you're starting to see some growth. Some of the end customers there are starting to talk about, you know, increased production. I guess maybe a little bit more color on the order book, the growth in that. I know you kept the revenue outlook for general industrial flat for this year. Is that, you know, one of the areas that we might see some upside in the second half if, you know, things continue to progress on the same trajectory they are now?

Yeah. You know, we've had two good quarters of bookings, which is really nice to see. You know, definitely always want to give a shout-out to the team. It's, you know, been a couple, you know, three years that have, you know, had industry headwinds in them. I think we do feel optimistic that 2027 we will return to some growth in this end market. You know, the trends continue to indicate that. You can see the reports out of, you know, our customer base of what's being built. The team continues to do a good job with bringing new products to market and winning new content. We're very well positioned as that growth does come back in this market segment that we will be there to position it.

You know, we've focused on, you know, our content across the European markets where I think growth is predicted to, you know, be a little bit more accelerated, so we feel good about what we've done there. You know, it's still a watch item, so we're being cautious. You know, we're not gonna meet our three-year Investor Day targets of low single digits in this market. It's nice to think that we will. You know, we're feeling good that 2027, 2028 is gonna be a better position.

I guess just to follow up on some of the, you know, the delayed spending you've seen out of, you know, some of the stuff that's gone on with budget approvals and continuing resolutions and stuff like that. The current administration has, you know, shown a real propensity to want to spend in these areas. How would you handicap the potential for that, you know, that spending to get accelerated in the back half of the fiscal year, your 2Q, 3Q for the government and perhaps see some upside, relative to some of the forecasts that you've put out there for continuing headwinds in those areas? Thanks for taking the questions.

Thank you, Nathan. You know, we're definitely, you know, you can see, you know, our book-to-bill across, you know, Naval & Power 1.5x. I mean, we're definitely seeing the aggression and the desire to spend and to get things moving. If I gauge it, you know, the chance for upside by our quote activity, our order activity, the analysis of the pipeline across our defense business, it's very strong. You know, you see, you know, the shipbuilding is very visible. Our Defense Electronics is across so many platforms that, you know, it's not driven by any one target. You know, even taken within our A&I segment, you know, Chris mentioned in his prepared remarks, the IFPC program. You know, the number of IFPCs procured this year is more than doubled from last year, and it's expected to almost double in 2027.

There's lots of examples like that around that, you know, are some really dramatic upticks that are going to drive revenue for Curtiss-Wright. You know, it's too early to count on anything. You know, the president's budget request at $1.5 trillion. You know, there's a lot of hand-wringing on that. You know, I was up on the Hill just a couple weeks ago, and, you know, lots of people have lots of opinions on it. I would say universally, everybody thinks there's going to be a much larger than the $1 trillion defense budget this year or next year. Between that and NATO countries, you know, ramping their spending, our prospects are very good.

Thank you. We'll move on now to John Godyn with Citi. Your line is open.

Hi, this is [audio distortion] on for John Godyn. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to circle back on the defense aerospace side that you called out earlier in your prepared remarks. You highlight strong trends for the quarter that benefit both Aerospace and Industrial as well as Defense Electronics. This has been a common theme we've heard across this earnings season. I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about what demand signals you're seeing here in the military aviation side looking ahead for the year and how things are shaping up relative to your expectations even from a few months ago. Are there any platforms or platform types such as fixed wing versus rotorcraft growing faster than the other? I appreciate any color that you can give here.

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a area of great growth. You know, whether it's, you know, modernization programs, you know, things like the C-17 that we were able to announce in Q1. You know, there's a lot of aircraft modernization programs going on, the F-15EX, the KC-46, to just name two others. We're, you know, we're very active and are participating in those. Early days, you know, as some of the next generation air dominance programs are being selected, you know, whether that's the F-47, F/A-XX is supposed to be awarded finally. You know, we're well positioned, we think, with that. The CCAs. The demand is very heavy.

You know, clearly the current situation over in Iran, you know, there is definitely, you know, driving a lot of sparing activity type of work that we're already beginning to see. It's not any one platform per se, but good steady content and growth. You know, even another example is, you know, with the president's budget in 2027, the number of F-35s from here in the U.S. alone is going to double. We'll see where that takes us.

All right. I appreciate the color. Then I want to circle up on the commercial end-user side, specifically on the AP1000. I'm just trying to get a sense of, like, when a customer or country finalizes an order or deal, what's the timeline for when you guys could, like, complete the product for these RCPs and start recognizing revenue? I'm just trying to get a sense, like, how the timing flows for you through these deals.

It's really a changing landscape right now. If you go back to our 2024 Investor Day, we kind of laid out, kind of the traditional approach to how the contractual situation had moved and, you know, how, you know, EPC contracts were led and how that led to us getting orders. In the current environment, you know, specifically more maybe here in the U.S. than across the European customers, you know, with some of the funding that's being made available out of the government, it's less clear whether we're going to follow this traditional trajectory. You know, we really take our cues from Westinghouse. I mean, regardless of who's buying the plants, our customer is Westinghouse, you know. We take our cues and work with them to understand when we can expect an order.

As I said in the prepared remarks, we do still expect that order this calendar year. We are scenario planning a variety of things with Westinghouse to make sure we're ready to ramp with them and meet their needs so they can be successful in the marketplace. That's, you know, the most important thing for us is making them successful. We've talked in the past, you know, we recognize the revenue over a four or five-year bell curve. It'll start a little slow at first as we, you know, there's, you know, there's work to be done that will drive revenue.

They started, you know, securing on lead material and things along those lines. So that's why we felt it was just prudent not to put any AP1000 revenue in our, in our guide for this year's revenue because, you know, the exact timing of the order, we don't know, and I don't wanna try and predict it. Whether it'll have a, you know, be in time for us to have meaningful revenue is TBD.

Got it. I appreciate the clarity. Thanks, Bam.

Thank you. We'll now move on to Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Your line is open.

Lynn, Chris, and Jim, good afternoon.

Hello.

Hey, Louie.

Lynn, you mentioned the F-47 and CCA. How are you positioned to potentially be involved for those next-gen platforms or have you already secured a spot in terms of content supplier relationships for those platforms?

It's a little bit of both. There is content we have secured across those platforms, but there's absolutely content that we're still pursuing, that there's still opportunities for us. I think they will, you know, both provide solid revenue streams for us going forward. We're on both the, you know, the winners of the CCA. We have nice content with both, so we'll see how that goes, whether they both wind up producing planes or just one of them. When Boeing won the F-47, we were, you know, very pleased with that. We had strong content that we secured with them and some things that are still under work.

Great. For the Navy, has the strength been broad-based across the nuclear pumps and valves that you provide in addition to electronics and R&D and perhaps overhaul? Has anything stood out in terms of how you've been able to maintain, like, the double-digit growth for the Navy for so long?

Yeah. I would say, Louis, the vast majority of the Navy order book and backlog is really focused within the Naval & Power segment, you know, where we are, you know, embedded across the, you know, the key naval nuclear platforms. And that's a very steady stream of work that continues to come on in. It gives us a very long-term view of where that market is headed. It's very durable revenues, and it's great cash flow. You know, you may have noticed here in the first quarter that, you know, while it was an outflow for us in cash, it was better than what we had seen in prior years and even beat our expectations a little bit.

That was really based upon the very strong orders that we had received across the submarine programs in Q1, you know, and the related advances that come on into that. Great, great cash businesses as well. We are seeing some uplift in other areas of the business, you know, for technology such as, you know, EM actuation and various things that we do there on the ships. I think as you look across the Defense Electronics Group, while it's, you know, not as significant a portion of their overall portfolio as, say, defense aero or ground defense, you know, there's a lot of work that goes into the subs and surface combat ships, you know, for that business.

You know, but the vast majority of what's happening there in the order book is really just kind of accelerating through the core of naval defense across the key platforms. I will say just, you know, maybe one last thing, you know, about naval. You know, you can't forget about what's happening on, you know, with FMS. You know, we are seeing a lot of naval aircraft handling system growth looking outwards. Also, we mentioned, I think on the in the prepared remarks, you know, we're seeing a lot of good work with, you know, fleet overhauls and repair work. Those last few categories can be, you know, accretive to the overall margin profile of the naval defense work.

How significant is the overhaul work for the broader Navy segment?

I think when you look at just, you know, the RCOH as an example, you know, I'll maybe just throw that out. I mean, we do approximately $50 million in work, you know, every time one of those carriers comes in. You know, we'll recognize that revenue over kind of a four to five-year timeframe as they're, you know, doing the work on the ships. You know, beyond that, I mean, we talked a little bit too about some of the growth that's been embedded across the Virginia-class submarine programs more recently, you know, initial spares provisioning that's happening there. We haven't given exact values.

You know, with some of that work and then also, you know, the service centers that we have on the East and West Coast, it's really kind of opening us up to other opportunities to help get the fleet repaired and back onto the water. It's good business for Curtiss-Wright.

Great. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Lynn and Jim.

Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, if you do have a question, please press star one now on your telephone keypad. We'll move on to Jan Engelbrecht with Baird. Your line is open.

Good morning, Lynn, Chris, and Jim. Congrats on another strong set of results. I think I'll start off with if you can give us sort of the present takes over the next couple years for the commercial nuclear franchise, how you're thinking about margin as you're sort of progressing through this decade, and just how we should think about sort of operating leverage on, you know, double-digit growth in the aftermarket and then SMR development ramping up, the impact of large reactors, the AP1000, and then just the South Korean design, which I think you have around $20 million of content today, but if they can sort of figure out a way that there could be a domestic build of that as well, I would assume that you'd be in a great position as having the domestic facilities.

Important question and one that I don't know if we're being comfortable giving a ton of color on. I will say, you know, starting in the SMR space, you know, clearly we've been doing this paid design work for, you know, four-ish years now, and that's always some of your lower margin business. As we begin to move, as we are really pleased to be able to announce into a prototyping phase with X-energy and then some of our other content is, you know, in the same vicinity. The one we're really talking about is X-energy. Well, that would be better margin business than the design work. You know, we're still working on how, you know, we will move into early production quantities, you know, later this decade.

I feel like, you know, there's natural margin uplift as we get volume and move through that work tied to the SMRs. You know, relative to the aftermarket work, you know, we make healthy margins on that business. It's more growing our content, and I don't know if there's any major margin changes coming in the aftermarket market work. I mean, as they do larger, you know, take on maybe some more sophisticated improvements that, you know, they're being afforded as they contemplate not just the 80 years, but the 100 years. There could be a little bit of something there, but I don't think it's dramatic.

With the AP1000s, you know, we just need to work to support Westinghouse, you know, it's a very active situation right now. I don't think it's appropriate for us to make any comment on that.

And I would just maybe-

Yeah

maybe answer your question on the revenue growth. You know, when we started, we had our last Investor Day back in May of 2024. You know, we put a slide up that showed the art of the possible, and we said that we would, you know, double our organic commercial nuclear footprint by 2028, which was taking $300 million of revenue to $600 million. Then, you know, you can layer on the acquisitions and stuff that we've done since then. It was a pretty reasonable outline of, you know, how we would actually achieve that.

You know, while the slide said possible, I mean, certainly some of the things that have been happening here in the industry since we've had that Investor Day have given us, you know, increased confidence that the possible is looking really good. I think as you're looking outward, we feel much better today about what's possible than we did back then.

Great. Thank you. That's very helpful. Just a quick follow-up, if I may. If you guys could just give us an update on the cockpit voice recorders franchise, sort of updates on the Airbus certification timeline and then just how's it tracking the North American fleet sort of upgrading from two hours to 25? I know there's a 2030 deadline, what are you seeing so far?

The work continues with Airbus, and we think we will achieve certification in the back half of this year. That's good. I mean, we're getting pretty close to having that achieved. I will say, you know, our deliveries remain pretty steady with Honeywell for new market build for Boeing. The aftermarket uptick has maybe been a little slower than we would've anticipated for retrofitting the existing fleet. You know, the good thing is, as much as that was announced back in 2024, it was actually signed into law February of this year. I think, you know, that final step of making the a legal requirement, it's just taken a little bit of time for the airlines to figure out how they're gonna execute to that. Overall, that business is, you know, relatively flat year-over-year for us.

There's absolutely, it will be a good growth driver for the Defense Electronics segment through the back end of this decade. No concerns. It's just, I think it's gonna really start healthy growth next year.

Great. Thanks, Lynn. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it.

We'll move on now to Scott Deuschle with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Lynn, there's obviously a lot of talk in the semiconductor industry about supply constraints and things like printed circuit boards and memory. I think this is something you've been pretty active about getting in front of and managing, but just curious for an update as to how you're thinking about managing those potential constraints and whether you see any impact to the business there.

There is definitely demand. I really give a shout-out to the team for their ability to manage their way through it. You know, we've talked about this. You know, one of the areas that's a big focus in that team is the memory and storage chips has been a real focus, and they've done a great job of, you know, really working with our suppliers to secure supply. You know, we tackle through so many different approaches. You know, we work with our customers to fund the supply base for us, and in some cases they're willing to do that. In some case, you know, it's more forecasted business and, you know, things we have to do.

We definitely leverage, you know, government high priority ratings where we can, which is, you know, a reasonable amount of the business, but not all. I am not gonna say that. Also just, you know, really from the COVID time and how we work with our suppliers, it has really become much more sophisticated over the past couple years, and whether that is the personal relationships we have or tools we have to be better, you know, monitoring lead times and doing advanced buys. You know, I know I have talked directly with the team about, you know, how they feel about, you know, the needs for 2026.

I think we have that well in hand. They're focused on 2027 and being able to have things in line so we're prepared to continue the great growth trajectory in that area and not let that impact us. The other, you know, supply area that we're, if you say the two that are top of mind, rare earth minerals are an issue that we watch. That's more across our surface technology and industrial businesses. They're also doing a lot of creative things with qualifying alternative minerals and looking for second sources and just, you know, various approaches. There's never one silver bullet. It's work, but the teams do a great job with it.

Got it. Maybe this is overreaching, but have you seen competitors have maybe greater issues with these semiconductor constraints such that your ability to secure these supplies actually creates a market share opportunity relative to competitors that maybe haven't managed these input constraints as well as you have?

Not anything that would be meaningful that I would make comment on. I mean, we are always after market share, and we are doing things to take market share, I will assure you that. You know, there are things that we're doing, you know, product capabilities. You know, we talk frequently about, you know, our Fabric 100, that's 100 gigabit Ethernet, and that's a unique offering to Curtiss-Wright. We're leveraging that to take market share. If they stumble, so be it, but we will do it through technology leadership and creating great value for our customer base that nobody else can deliver.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'm happy to return the call to Lynn Bamford, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, for additional or closing remarks.

Simply thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on the road or following the re-release of our second quarter results. Have a good day.

Thank you. This concludes today's Curtiss-Wright Earnings Conference Call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.