LNN

Good morning, welcome to the Lindsay Corporation Fiscal Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Randy Wood, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fiscal 2026 third quarter earnings call. With me today is Sam Hinrichsen, our Chief Financial Officer. Starting with our third quarter results. I'm proud of our team's continued execution and resilience through what's been a difficult environment amid a cyclical bottom in agricultural markets. Trade uncertainty, high input costs, and weak farmer sentiment continue to weigh on our business. We remained focused on the levers within our control, including pricing, cost management, and operational efficiency, while continuing to invest strategically to position the business for long-term growth. In North America, our irrigation customers continue to delay large capital purchases given current farm economics, which resulted in lower unit sales volumes in the quarter. Demand remains soft, consistent with our expectations.

While commodity prices showed some improvement and government support programs have provided modest relief to growers, neither has significantly impacted demand. In our international business, revenues were down slightly year-over-year, driven by lower sales volumes in Brazil due to the high interest rate environment and limited access to credit, which continues to constrain growers' ability to finance capital equipment purchases. Our infrastructure business continued to grow year-over-year. Third quarter revenues increased 8%, driven by higher road safety product revenues, marking three consecutive quarters of growth. Road Zipper lease revenues were similar to the prior year. As we said previously, we don't anticipate a large Road Zipper project this fiscal year.

Turning to our market outlook. The U.S. irrigation market remains soft as growers await further trade certainty and improvement in profitability. Current USDA projections indicate cost of production will exceed commodity prices for several key commodities this year, a continuation of a multi-year trend. We do not expect a meaningful near-term recovery in North American demand until these economics improve. In Brazil, we continue to view the market as one of the most attractive long-term growth opportunities in global irrigation. Customer engagement at recent agricultural trade shows, including Agrishow, was encouraging, with strong traffic, high levels of grower interest, and robust quoting activity. These interactions reinforce our view that growers increasingly recognize the productivity, water efficiency, and profitability benefits that mechanized irrigation can deliver.

These underlying demand drivers in Brazil remain compelling, including the ability to increase yields, improve crop consistency, and support multi-year growing cycles per year. We are also pleased to see the financing rate under Brazil's 2026/2027 crop plan decline from 12.5% to 11.5%. Lower financing costs are a positive development for growers and should improve the affordability and return on investment of irrigation systems. This rate certainty should drive customers who have been taking a wait and see approach to enter the market. Historically, access to attractive financing programs has been an important catalyst for irrigation adoption, and the reduction in rates is directionally supportive for future demand.

At the same time, we believe it's important to remain measured in our outlook. While financing rates improve, the total funding allocated to irrigation within the FINAME program has been reduced from approximately BRL 2.75 billion to BRL 1.7 billion. As a result, the availability of credit remains a constraint and could limit the pace of market expansion in the near term. In our view, the lower interest rate improves the economics of irrigation investments, but the reduced size of the funding pool effectively places a ceiling on near-term market growth and tempers our enthusiasm for rapid recovery and demand. This dynamic is consistent with what we've been discussing for several quarters, where strong customer interest has been offset by credit availability and financing constraints.

As a result, we remain cautiously optimistic in the short term while maintaining a high degree of confidence in the long-term growth opportunity in Brazil. In the MENA region, we will continue delivery of the large irrigation project through our fiscal fourth quarter, and we remain encouraged by the overall outlook for future growth in our international markets, particularly in regions focused on improving food security and water resource management. As always, timing of project wins and deliveries is difficult to predict, but our proven track record on project execution, technology strength, and local presence positions us well in the region.

Our leadership position in irrigation technology and innovation continues to accelerate adoption across our FieldNET and FieldWise platforms, reinforcing the strength of our connected equipment strategy. Our new TowerWatch feature within the SmartPivot platform is improving machine diagnostics and reducing downtime, directly enhancing grower economics and increasing the stickiness of our technology. This performance further validates our view that technology is a core competitive advantage, expanding our recurring revenue base, improving margin mix, and strengthening long-term customer retention. We expect these dynamics to support sustained double-digit technology revenue growth in fiscal 2026.

In infrastructure, we anticipate continued growth in road safety product sales globally. The Road Zipper pipeline remains strong, and while we continue to actively manage a robust set of opportunities, the timing of these projects is difficult to predict. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has advanced the BUILD America 250 Act, a bipartisan five-year reauthorization totaling $580 billion, establishing a framework ahead of the September 2026 deadline. The bill prioritizes core highway and bridge investments, strengthens funding to states, and introduces new highway trust fund revenue, providing long-term funding stability.

Operationally, our new tube mill has been successfully commissioned and is now in full production in Lindsay, Nebraska. This is a core operation for us, and we now have industry-leading automation and technology that increases safety, efficiency, and throughput. It also gives us the ability to rapidly respond to short-term shifts in demand, ultimately preparing us to operate successfully through the market cycles. As we've discussed in the past, we will need market recovery in order to fully capture the impact of the productivity gains. Our new galvanizing facility remains on schedule, and we expect that to be turned over to production in early 2027. This will further expand our galvanizing capabilities while improving quality and opening new opportunities for growth.

While market conditions across portions of our agricultural end markets remain challenging, we believe it's important to position the business for the realities of the current cycle while preserving the capability to capitalize on future growth opportunities. We have taken the initiative to restructure and right-size portions of our organization and optimize our operating cost structure. These actions are focused on improving efficiency, eliminating complexity, and better aligning resources with anticipated market demand. This initiative is about creating a stronger and more agile company in support of our long-term strategy. Importantly, this initiative does not alter our commitment to investing in our core strategic priorities, including innovation, digital solutions, manufacturing capabilities, and growth opportunities across our businesses. We expect savings to begin in fiscal 2027.

I'd like to now turn the call over to Sam to discuss our fiscal third quarter financial results. Sam?

Thank you, Randy, and good morning, everyone. Total revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2026 were $160.8 million, a decrease of 5% compared to $169.5 million in the prior year. Decline in revenues reflects continued softness in our irrigation segment, consistent with the challenging agricultural environment we have been navigating this fiscal year. This was partially offset by growth in our infrastructure segment. Operating income for the third quarter was $18.5 million, compared to $23.8 million in the prior year, and operating margin was 11.5% of sales compared to 14% of sales last year. The decrease in operating income was mainly driven by lower revenues and the impact of fixed cost leverage in the irrigation segment. It was partially offset by growth in the infrastructure segment and a reduction of corporate expenses. Despite the challenging environment, we delivered double-digit operating margins.

Third quarter results include a one-time benefit related to tariff refunds. This represents a partial reversal of tariff costs incurred to date. We have seen input costs escalate during the fiscal year, and our pricing actions still need to catch up. Net earnings for the quarter were $15.8 million, or $1.53 per diluted share, compared to $19.5 million or $1.78 per diluted share in the prior year. The year-over-year decrease reflected the impact of lower operating income, which was partially offset by an increase in other income and a lower effective tax rate. Turning to segment results. Irrigation segment revenues for the third quarter were $133 million, a decrease of 7% compared to $143.7 million in the prior year. Results were largely in line with our expectations, given the challenging environment. North America irrigation revenues were $61.3 million, a decrease of 11% compared to $69.1 million in the prior year.

The decrease resulted primarily from lower unit sales volume, which was partially offset by higher average selling prices. International irrigation revenues were $71.7 million, a decrease of 4% compared to $74.7 million in the prior year. The decrease was driven by lower sales volume in Brazil, which was partially offset by growth in other international markets. Irrigation segment operating income for the quarter was $20.3 million, compared to $27.2 million in the prior year, and operating margin was 15.3% of sales compared to 18.9% of sales last year. The decrease in operating income was due to lower unit sales volume, higher input costs, and the impact of fixed cost leverage. Our infrastructure segment revenues for the quarter increased 8% to $27.7 million, compared to $25.7 million in the prior year. The increase was driven by higher road safety product revenues, while Road Zipper revenues were below the prior year.

Infrastructure segment operating income was $5.4 million comparable to the prior year, and operating margin was 19.5% of sales compared to 21.1% of sales last year. The decrease in operating margin was a result of less favorable mix due to lower Road Zipper revenues. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity. At the end of the third quarter, our total available liquidity was $204.8 million, which includes $154.8 million in cash and cash equivalents and $50 million available under our revolving credit facility. Capital expenditures for the first nine months of the fiscal year were $35.5 million, reflecting our ongoing strategic investments at the Lindsay, Nebraska site. We continue to execute against our capital allocation priorities and deploy $25.2 million towards share repurchases during the quarter.

During the first nine months of the fiscal year, we have returned $80.7 million to shareholders through share repurchases. We remain confident in the strength of our balance sheet and our ability to prepare the business for future profitable growth.

This concludes my remarks. At this time, I will turn the call over to the operator to take your questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question today is from Ryan Connors with Northcoast Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning.

Morning, Ryan.

Morning.

I wanted to start on the Middle East project. Great news that the major order was not disrupted by the conflict. Randy, could you kind of expand on the outlook there and the project cadence going forward? Has there been any sign that that impacts the pipeline going forward? Obviously, this big order will be completing mostly this year, as you noted. Any update on kind of the pipeline in the Middle East would be helpful.

The pipeline, Ryan, when you look at all of the public proclamations that Egypt has made specifically, not only in Egypt, if you look at Northern Africa and across the Middle East, I think there's a lot of very public statements from leaders looking to continue investing in domestic ag production for food security purposes. We haven't seen any significant shifts in the total market opportunity. There's still, in our view, a lot more business out there. We're in the early innings. I think we are watching how quickly water infrastructure is developed, the electrical infrastructure is developed. Some of those things could speed up or slow down over time. When we look at kind of a macro level, there still is a lot more opportunity there, and I'd say we're in the early to mid-innings with more growth to come.

Got it. Just a housekeeping on that specific project, the $80 million. You mentioned in release $70 million in the current fiscal year. Are we to presume that the remaining $10 million is in the first quarter of fiscal 2027?

You're right, Ryan. $70 million is to the expectation to be recognized in fiscal 2026. The remaining $10 million will spill into 2027. There could be minor timing changes, but it's going to be early in the fiscal year.

Got it. Okay. Just switching gears to the capital projects. Randy, you mentioned the galvanizing facility is going to be up and running, but you said 2027. Just to clarify, were you referring to fiscal 2027 or calendar 2027 when that will be live?

That will be calendar 2027, Ryan. Thanks for the clarity.

Calendar 2027. Okay. In terms of what that will do to the cadence of the CapEx once that goes live, if I'm recalling correctly, that's really the last of the major projects, no? We should see a down step in CapEx once that project goes live?

That is correct, Ryan. This is the final step of our strategic investments. Once the galvanizing goes live, you will see a return to normalized capital levels comprised of course, maintenance capital and investments in organic growth that have strong business cases behind them.

Yep. Just one last one on the big picture side. We're hearing a lot about AI in agriculture. Mostly we're seeing cool stuff like targeted herbicides that can spray weeds. The AI sees what's a weed and what's not, and things like drones and whatnot. Specifically to irrigation, is there anything exciting going on in terms of using AI to improve the capabilities of FieldNET? Just curious on the big picture AI impacts on the product set and the technology side.

Yeah. It's an area that we're pretty excited about, and it's an area that we continue to put resources behind because we do see the potential impact on the profitability of our customers. When you look at customers right now selling commodities for less than it costs them to grow them, we've got to find ways to enhance our profitability wherever we can. With FieldNET Advisor specifically, we've really been deploying a lot of AI models to help with irrigation scheduling. That generally is proven agronomic science. It just hasn't been simple. It hasn't been easy to deploy. We're putting all of that intelligence in the pocket of our customers, and they can wake up every morning and know exactly what water is required where based on historical weather, predicted weather, crop growth stage, soil type.

That tool, from our view, is starting to get a lot of traction in the market because it makes it easier for customers to plan their water, sustain their energy use, and then really impacting the bottom line. The other side that I think is really interesting, and this again, is kind of innovation and development, is the SmartPivot platform, where things like machine learning can allow us to pre-diagnose failures. If you think about whether it's center drives or gearboxes, other mechanical portions of the machine, when they are approaching the point of imminent failure, they'll demonstrate characteristics that you can measure. If you have machine learning capabilities to recognize what normal looks like, you can calculate what abnormal looks like and again, pre-diagnose some of those failures.

AI, again, very early innings, I think, in terms of how it applies to our equipment, but we do see some pretty exciting opportunities to once again change how customers interact and operate their mechanized irrigation equipment.

Well, that's exciting stuff. We'll stay tuned, and thanks for your time.

Thank you, Ryan.

The next question is from Brian Drab with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. In the press release, you mentioned that you expect Brazil to return to growth. In the prepared remarks here on the call, it sounded a little bit more cautious than that. I'm wondering, can you just elaborate on that? Do you expect to return to growth, the timing, and given it's still a challenging environment, obviously, at the moment?

Yeah, you bet, Brian. In Brazil, the release of the program, any program, we view it as good news because we know firsthand that there's a lot of customers working on specific projects, just waiting to see what the program was going to offer for them. I think the market expectation locally was probably in high single digits. The 11.5% is not as aggressive maybe as the market wanted, but it did go from a 12.5% to 11.5%, and they have a program that they can jump on. We would look at column shovel-ready type projects are probably going to start working their way through the system now. We wouldn't expect a significant impact on our fourth quarter, which is going to end August 31st.

But some of those initial projects that will get through the funding mechanism, that will get approved, that will roll out, we could see some of those early in first quarter fiscal year 2027. The fact that the total program volume is a little lower than last year, I mean, a 38% reduction in total funding available. The good news is they hadn't fully appropriated 100% of the program funds in the past. It does sound like a significant headwind maybe initially when you read the headline, but if they haven't allocated 100% of the money, a 38% reduction is probably going to be a little easier for the market to absorb.

We don't see an immediate spike and jump in Brazil. We do know some of those projects that had been on hold are now going to progress through the system, and we'd hope to get our fair share of those. Likely not seeing that until first quarter of our next fiscal year.

Okay. Thank you. Just in general on the irrigation business, in terms of seasonality and how that impacts the revenue in the fourth quarter typically, and I do not know if you commented, but any comment on what you're expecting in terms of any abnormalities related to seasonality in the fourth quarter?

The fourth quarter historically obviously is the lowest volume quarter for us. It's the one where we have the lowest amount of fixed overhead absorption. It had been generally a very light storm season. We did see the last week of May in the Midwest, a little bit of activity, but I would say that's down from previous years. We aren't currently projecting a lot of optimism relative to volume in the fourth quarter. It should look typical to down relative to prior periods.

Okay. Year-over-year, are you making any comment on the fourth quarter or should we just say down from the third quarter is what I would expect you're saying?

It's certainly down from the third quarter. The storm volume is the one thing that we often talk about as that moves the needle up or down in Q4. Right now, I would say softer storm volume than we've seen in previous years.

Okay, that's helpful. If I could just ask one more, can you add any color around expectations for gross margin? You had fiscal 2025, there's some good Road Zipper sales and tailwind to gross margin as a result of that. Just so many different dynamics. It's hard for us to forecast what we should be thinking about for gross margin going into next year, next fiscal year, too. The movement in steel is dramatic and a lot of other factors.

What I would say is, initially in Q4, of course, you will see the impact of more unfavorable absorption or less absorption just given the seasonality. We can't opine on the inflation from a raw material perspective. We are prepared to continue to face cost escalation and we'll pull all the levers to address those. I think other than the normal seasonality and of course the timing of projects, there are too many variables to be very discrete on the expectations.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

The next question is from Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. This is Adam Farley on for Nathan.

Morning.

Maybe one more on domestic irrigation. Could you provide an update on drought conditions in primary irrigation regions? Just how the season's shaping up so far.

Yeah. When you look at year-over-year drought, we are seeing at a national level a substantial increase this year, and we kind of use the drought monitor that's published. If you look at that severe drought to exceptional drought, kind of that D2 to D4, a year ago, we saw about 15% of the country in that status. This year it's over a third of the country in that status. More importantly, if we look at the core irrigation states in the Midwest, Nebraska right now, I would say the western half to western 2/3 is really in that extreme drought. I know I've talked to several customers and dealers in that part of the country, and they're concerned about their ability to finish a crop in some of those markets because they're not going to have enough water to bring a crop to maturity.

You get further west into Colorado, the panhandle of Oklahoma, panhandle of Texas. I mean, it's a pretty tough environment. One thing it does do, and we've said this consistently, drought is generally good for business until it isn't. When you get to that extreme drought category where customers may not have the water they need, that's when it starts to be negative to the business. In a lot of these areas today, it's promoting efficient use of water. It's promoting the utilization of tools like FieldNET Advisor to maximize application of water when it's going to contribute the most to yield.

I would say, we're watching a lot of these areas pretty closely. If it continues to accelerate to this level of impact, at least we'd say that the western portion of the Corn Belt, we could start to see some of that negative yield impact, which ironically could decrease supply and maybe provide some pricing support at some point.

That's really helpful detail. Maybe just shifting over to the planned restructuring actions in fiscal 2027. Maybe just a little more color on what the actions are that you're contemplating. How much do you think these will cost to implement, and the expected savings from these actions?

I think we'll probably wait till we get through the full quarter before we get a little more specific on some of the numbers you're asking about, Adam. I can say, as we did in the prepared comments, this is about organization structure, efficiency, finding ways to do work differently, leveraging tools like AI to change how we work. Clearly also want to make sure we can continue to invest in long-term growth priorities, the strategic priorities of the business. I think our leadership team worked effectively well, very collaboratively to make sure we recognized how to run this company in the down cycle, which we've done before, without impacting our ability to respond when the market does recover.

Okay. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thanks, Adam.

The next question is from Jon Braatz with Kansas City Capital. Please go ahead.

Morning, Randy, Sam.

Good morning, Jon.

Randy, could you speak a little bit about the pricing environment domestically? What are you seeing in the irrigation segment?

Well, I'm sure it wouldn't be a surprise, Jon, that when the market softens like this and volume for the whole industry drops off, it does get a lot more competitive. I think it's still rational, that we don't see irrational behavior now, but it is getting more competitive, and we are seeing it in targeted regions. Our approach in this environment is the same as it has been. We want to make sure we protect customer relationships where they matter to us. We want to make sure we protect our dealers in regions where things might be getting more aggressive and allow them to compete and win for their fair share of the business. We're never gonna use pricing to drive volume. We're never gonna use pricing to drive grow market share. We want to be protective of the business that we think is ours.

Certainly, I think it's fair to say a more competitive environment. When you combine the cost, the uncertainty that we're seeing and some of the cost increases with the competitive pricing environment, it can obviously create a little bit of pinch on margins. I think we're seeing some of that. We are doing everything we can to control the things we can control and working closely with our commercial teams and dealers to make sure we're maximizing pricing where we can, but recognizing also we've got to protect volume and protect some of those key relationships.

Sure. [audio distortion] Given what we're seeing at the moment, and if the market continues to be soft, would you think incrementally you might see additional competitive pressures, pricing pressures?

I think it's natural to assume if the competitive environment intensifies, that pricing could become more competitive. I'd say at this point, it's probably too early. We have to get through fall harvest and full year profitability. We know the data on profitability this year really correlates well to sales volume next year. I think it's a little too early to make that assumption, but I think if the competitive environment stays stable, then I would predict that the pricing environment probably remains stable. If the volumes continues to drop and the market gets more competitive, then I would probably predict that pricing could also get a little more competitive.

Okay. Thank you. One last question. Sam, when you look at the segment results, your unallocated corporate expenses will be down, I don't know, about $4 million this year, it looks like. Where are the savings coming from? Is it possible that we could see more next year?

The savings you've seen to date, that's really a function of our teams managing everything from discretionary spending to timing of expenses very wisely. Of course, we talked about the restructuring actions. Those will not have impact in Q4, but they will yield savings in our fiscal 2027.

Okay. Thank you.

Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question is from Brett Kearney with American Rebirth Opportunity Partners. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, Randy and Sam. Thanks for taking my question.

Good morning.

I was just gonna ask for a quick update on some of your new product introductions. I think we already partially covered iterations on the ag tech side, but I know you also had some new products in the market on the road safety aspect as well. Just wanna hear how the traction is going in the marketplace there.

I think the most recent introductions have created a lot of market interest. We had a lot of discussions at trade shows. I do know we are working on late stages of approvals through the appropriate organizations here, so I can't comment on early penetration and sales volume, Brett. I would say that based on the market excitement that we've seen, once we get through final testing and release, we do have we think pretty good outlook on some continuing the growth trend for the road safety products.

Okay, terrific. Thank you, Randy.

You bet, Brett.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Randy Wood for any closing remarks.

Thank you. While current market conditions continue to present near-term challenges, we remain confident in our strategy and our ability to execute effectively while positioning the business for sustainable long-term success. Our experienced leadership team remains focused on disciplined execution, carefully managing costs through the cycle while directing capital towards opportunities that support our long-term strategic objectives. Above all, we remain focused on creating lasting value for our shareholders and appreciate your continued support. We look forward to updating you on our progress during our fourth quarter earnings call. Thanks for joining us and have a great holiday.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.