MIR

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Eric Linn, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Maria. Good morning, and welcome to Mirion's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me this morning are Mirion's Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Tom Logan, and Mirion's CFO and Medical Group President, Brian Schopfer. Before we begin today's prepared remarks, allow me to remind you that comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The factors that could cause actual results to differ are disclosed in our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and in Mirion's other SEC filings under the caption Risk Factors. Quarterly references within today's discussion are related to the first quarter ended March 31st, 2026, unless otherwise noted. The comments made during this call will also include certain financial measures that were not prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Reconciliation of those non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix of the presentation accompanying today's call. All earnings materials can be found in the investor relations section of our website at www.mirion.com. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tom, who will begin on panel three.

Eric, thank you very much. Thanks to each of you for joining our first quarter earnings call. We're off to a strong start in 2026 with significant first quarter order generation. Orders are a bellwether for our business. They increased 19% in the first quarter to $241 million, excluding M&A-related growth. If we include M&A growth from Paragon and Certrec, orders increased 42% to $288 million. Order volume was notably diverse. Both segments saw meaningful growth, including our RTQA medical business, which faced headwinds in 2025. This is translating into noticeable backlog expansion. Backlog now totals $1.1 billion, up 19% excluding M&A or 38%, including M&A. Our nuclear power end market within the nuclear and safety segment continues to lead the way.

Nuclear power orders and revenue growth were derived primarily from existing reactors running today and small modular reactors or SMRs. Paragon orders added another $43 million in the quarter. We continue to be impressed by the value created by the Paragon team. Given the nature of their solution set, they're truly the tip of the spear when it comes to momentum from the nuclear power installed base. The existing nuclear fleet is approaching middle age, and reinvestment is critical to maintain and increase capacity through power uprates. We'll spend time this morning detailing progress on our large opportunity order pipeline, but let me tease the discussion by noting we secured $50 million of these large opportunity orders in Q1. Moreover, we won an additional $35 million in SMR-related orders in April.

The rest of the pipeline remains intact. We continue to have high conviction on our right to win. The accelerating nuclear power demand we see is reflective of increasing market tailwinds. The momentum continues to compound. Recent geopolitical events reinforce the need for onshore secure baseload energy. A decade ago, operators were focused on accelerated plant shutdowns, with extreme capital rationing impacting OpEx and CapEx budgets. Today, they are focused on 100-year operating cycles as well as plant modernization, both of which profoundly impact capital spending plans. We see this most immediately in Paragon and Certrec, with a substantial follow-on opportunity for Mirion instrumentation and controls and digitally enabled radiation protection solutions. Note that this dynamic is robust and not contingent upon future assumptions about AI-driven demand growth. The limiting factor on AI growth is available compute, which in turn is most profoundly constrained by energy availability.

Further, note that greater than 80% of our nuclear power revenue accrues from the installed base. New nuclear projects represent upside, with strong optionality tied to both SMR and utility scale development plans. Panel four quantifies the impact of just a few recent notable nuclear power headlines, which reinforce the surge in global demand for nuclear power. In the U.S., the Department of Energy's UPRISE initiative aims to boost existing nuclear power capacity by 2.5 GW by 2027 and 5 GW by 2029. Power demand is so strained that the DOE and utilities are rapidly accelerating capital deployment to deliver more nuclear output at existing plants. This is part of the Trump administration's broader push to expand U.S. nuclear energy capacity from around 100 GW today to 400 GW by 2050.

Additionally, the energy shock driven by recent geopolitical uncertainty has highlighted the risk of reliance on imported fossil fuels in many regions. This is sharpening the focus on energy security, onshoring, and decarbonization. Nuclear power is increasingly viewed as a core solution across all three priorities, especially with countries whose energy needs are becoming strained by a changing world order. In aggregate, these two headlines alone will add an estimated 8 GW to 15 GW of nuclear power generation. Of this added amount, approximately 3 GW to 5 GW are incremental to the U.S. market, underscoring the importance of our U.S.-based Paragon and Certrec acquisitions. It's also worth noting that U.S. utilities have committed $1.4 trillion in planned capital expenditures through 2030, a 21% increase from projections made just one year ago. Companies like Duke Energy are projecting over $100 billion in their planned five-year capital spend.

NextEra is not far behind at approximately $94 billion. Each of these is an existing Mirion customer. Panel five details Paragon's integration progress and first quarter financial contributions. Both the Paragon and Certrec acquisitions are positioning Mirion to address the U.S. market at exactly the right moment. We made these acquisitions before this full scope of the existing fleet capital cycle was broadly visible to the market. The commercial synergy opportunities are coming into focus as utilities and the federal government are injecting capital into the operating reactor fleet. As a reminder, we have content in every single reactor within North America and approximately 98% of the global operating fleet. The synergy opportunities are significant. For example, Paragon's products and engineering capabilities will allow Mirion to expand our scope to better compete for power uprate and digital modernization projects.

Certrec's regulatory and workforce software is a compelling solution for today's labor-constrained environment. This addition gives Mirion a software and services revenue layer that compounds within our hardware footprint at every plant. These combined offerings mean Mirion can now offer customers more integrated solutions that span laboratory instruments, safety and security systems, qualified equipment, radiation protection, and regulatory and workforce software. No competitor in the U.S. nuclear market has that breadth. These acquisitions will deliver revenue synergies, customer access synergies, and platform synergies at exactly the moment the market is asking for all three. We're already seeing this materializing in Paragon's financial performance. Paragon's first quarter revenue grew 45%, reflecting a broad-based increase in demand. This accelerating revenue is improving their operating leverage and helping to expand margins. We spoke with you last quarter about the planned cadence of integration efforts.

We're pleased to report that we have identified additional synergy opportunities. Legacy teams are collaborating closely, and customers are eager to realize the benefits of a combined Mirion, Paragon, and Certrec entity. We are prioritizing the customer experience with joint customer engagements across strategic accounts. These collaborations are already resulting in incremental order wins. For example, we were able to utilize Paragon's existing relationships with key strategic customers to secure a significant order for legacy Mirion products. This is an early example of what will become normal operating procedure for our combined companies. All of these data points are resulting in tangible benefits for Mirion, and this is most evident in our backlog illustrated on panel six. Back-to-back strong Q4 and Q1 orders are creating a step change in our backlog.

After two years of nominal backlog growth, the nuclear dynamic we've been discussing is translating into tangible opportunities for our company. We've consistently reminded investors that it can take several quarters or years for orders to convert into revenue. Clearly, the backlog is meaningfully expanding, which is the precursor to accelerated revenue growth ahead. Before I turn it over to Brian, panel seven summarizes progress continuing across the medical segment. Our RTQA end market, which accounts for approximately half of the segment's revenue, enjoyed promising activity. Recall, in 2025, we experienced several headwinds, both domestically and abroad. Encouragingly, we are beginning to see strengthening hardware activity while software activity continues to be a bright spot. In the U.S., we booked a sizable radiation-tolerant camera order tied to the Varian partnership. This is an important relationship with the leading OEM in the industry.

We look forward to supporting this relationship and other key accounts with the kind of new product innovation that helped to secure this important order. In nuclear medicine, we remain on track for double-digit organic revenue growth in 2026. This will be our second consecutive year of double-digit organic nuclear medicine growth. Our market-leading position with key hardware offerings like Dose Calibrators and Thyroid Uptake Systems makes us a critical supplier to the growing radiopharma ecosystem. In addition, we are broadening our international reach to capture infrastructure growth abroad. We believe our ec² software platform will create growing opportunities across the radiopharmaceutical landscape from drug discovery through clinical administration. This opportunity will grow meaningfully as more targeted radiopharmaceutical therapies advance to the market. Lastly, Dosimetry Services remains a compelling business. This end market is a reliable franchise growing at GDP plus through the cycle.

Meanwhile, it consistently provides strong margins and remains an attractive recurring revenue platform. Our broader push from analog to digital offerings will continue, creating additional margin upside over time. As a side note, we are proud of the fact that the crew on the recent Artemis Lunar Mission wore a customized version of our digital dosimeters to monitor their radiation safety. More significantly, our digital dosimetry offerings have caught the attention of numerous key nuclear power accounts, creating cross-sell opportunities to expand beyond an historically medically-oriented business. I'll turn it over now to Brian to walk through the financials. Brian?

Thank you, Tom, good morning to each of you on the call. I'll continue the prepared remarks on slide eight, outlining our financial performance. First quarter total revenue was $258 million, an increase of 28% versus last year's first quarter. Organic revenue growth was 3%, in line with our expectations and aligned with what we communicated in February. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $54 million, or 16% better than last year. As foreshadowed back in February, margins contracted in the quarter, reflecting margin dilute of M&A, one-timers in Q1 of the prior year, and a mix shift in the legacy nuclear and safety segment, mainly related to our sensing business. We utilized approximately $16 million of our $100 million share repurchase program in the first quarter to buy back approximately 700,000 shares.

This is consistent with last year's first quarter to offset the dilutive impact from our annual stock-based compensation program. We generated $11 million of adjusted free cash flow in the quarter. Q1 is historically our lightest cash flow generation quarter. Cash generation around our project business can be lumpy, and that is what we saw in Q1, with less project inflows than a year ago. In the quarters going forward, we have line of sight to a much more robust cash generation profile and a better working capital dynamics. Lastly, as Tom outlined, orders in the first quarter were strong, with growth coming from both segments. Slide nine has the details. Order performance was the highlight of the quarter. Absent any M&A related order growth, core orders grew nearly 20%, reflecting growth in both segments.

Total orders, including a $47 million contribution from Paragon and Certrec, grew 42% in the quarter to $288 million. In nuclear and safety, orders grew across all three end markets: nuclear power, labs and research, and defense and diversifieds. In nuclear power, growth primarily reflects two sizable installed base orders within the U.S. operating fleet and a large SMR order. Within Paragon, we booked an incremental large order within the U.S. installed base. The approximately $35 million SMR related order we were awarded in April will show up in the Q2 orders number. Labs and research orders grew primarily out of Europe despite comping against a $5 million DOE order from last year. One thing I would point out at Paragon is we saw strong DOE related order activity in the quarter. Our DOE pipeline across the company is very strong.

Lastly, defense and diversified orders grew in the quarter, thanks to a radioactive waste handling order, which was part of our large opportunity pipeline. In the medical segment, order growth primarily reflects the radiation hardened cameras order within the RTQA end market. That gives us good backlog in that new product for the next three years. Slide 10 provides the latest update to our large opportunity pipeline. Two of the five large opportunity orders are Paragon related. In the first quarter, we won the first part of an SMR order, part of a radioactive waste handling order in our defense and diversified end market, a Paragon large battery qualification order within the installed base, and a large medical order for radiation hardened cameras from our RTQA business.

Interestingly and importantly, both the RTQA and battery orders were not in our pipeline at year-end, which tells you how dynamic the environment continues to be. Separately, in April, we were awarded the first part of another large Paragon SMR order. The rest of the pipeline remains active and continues to represent a significant opportunity for the company, including the remaining components of the three partial orders I mentioned. Before I dig into the quarter's financial results, let me spend a moment detailing the nuclear power end market on slide 11. Nuclear power orders, excluding M&A, grew 15% in the first quarter, including the large partial SMR order. SMR orders continue to impress. We booked approximately $15 million of orders in the quarter, followed by the $35 million large opportunity we were awarded in April. Momentum continues within this segment of nuclear power.

Let's get into the quarterly financials beginning on slide 12. Consolidated first quarter revenue grew 27.5% to $258 million. Approximately 21 of the 27.5% growth was attributed to acquisitions, primarily Paragon. Organic revenue growth of 3% was in line with expectations. Recall, on our February earnings call, we noted that we expected organic revenue growth to be in the low single digits for the first quarter. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $54 million or 16% better than last year's first quarter. As foreshadowed on our February earnings call, adjusted EBITDA margins contracted. This was primarily due to the margin dilutive impact from M&A, as well as some mix impacts coupled with one-timers in the legacy business. We expect to see margin expansion in the next three quarters within the legacy business, offset by Paragon.

Adjusted EPS totaled $0.10 per share in the quarter. In 2026, we are now including stock-based comp in our adjusted EPS calculation. Last year's adjusted EPS would have been $0.08 per share using a similar methodology to the one put in place for 2026. We have an adjusted EPS reconciliation slide in the appendix that has the details for your modeling. Turning to the nuclear and safety segment on slide 13, first quarter revenue was $186 million, up 39%. Organic revenue was 2.6% better than our expectations of flat year-over-year noted in February. A few things of particular interest in the first quarter. First, nuclear power related revenue, excluding M&A, increased 4% versus last year.

I would note that for the first quarter, we were comping 18%. We saw growth in both our installed base markets of North America and Europe. This was offset by less new build revenue in Asia, mainly China and Korea. We still expect to see double-digit revenue growth in the nuclear power end market for the full year. Second, we are seeing SMR related revenue accelerate. This accounts for 2% of total Mirion revenue and is expected to increase to greater than 3% of total Mirion revenue by year end. Third, we saw better than expected labs and research end market organic revenue growth, thanks to strong performance out of North America. Fourth, in our defense end market, we saw higher NATO and U.S. military and civil defense revenue. As a reminder, the defense end market can be lumpy, but activity has certainly picked up.

Adjusted EBITDA grew nearly $8 million or 19% to $47 million. As we've already discussed, nuclear and safety adjusted EBITDA margins contracted. Half of the contraction was M&A related. The other half was mostly due to mix shifts inclusive of the sensing business, the number of one-timers in the prior year, and some mix more broadly within our North America business. Lastly, it is worth noting that we were comping over 300 basis points of margin expansion in Q1 2025, the largest of any quarter in 2025 for this segment. Now let's move to the Medical segment on slide 14. First quarter revenue was $72 million, up 5%. Organic revenue growth was approximately 4%, in line with the expected mid-single-digit organic revenue growth noted on the February earnings call.

Our RTQA end market posted double-digit organic revenue growth, driven by an easier comp lapping last year's ERP implementation headwinds, favorable software performance, and a month's worth of production from the large camera order we received. In nuclear medicine, we expect much of the organic revenue growth to occur in the back half of the year. Meanwhile, our Dosimetry Services end market posted a slight reduction in organic growth. This business had a difficult comp due to a large hardware order last year, which we have discussed before. Excluding this, our core Dosimetry Services organic revenue would have grown low single digits in Q1. Medical segment Q1 adjusted EBITDA was $25 million or 6% better than last year. As expected, margins expanded in the quarter, reflecting operating leverage and pricing tailwinds.

Turning to adjusted free cash flow on slide 15, we generated $11 million of adjusted free cash flow in the first quarter. The difference versus last year is primarily due to timing affecting networking capital. While networking capital was a large use of cash in the quarter, we saw the structural enhancements we made to our balance sheet bear fruit in the quarter via the interest expense line. We remain on track for our full-year adjusted free cash flow guidance and believe Q1 marks a trough. We continue to see large opportunities for improvement in AR, inventory, and our project cash flows. More broadly, on 2026 guidance on slide 16, everything remains unchanged from our February earnings call disclosures, with the exception of a small adjustment to adjusted EPS to account for the one-time CEO retention grant of performance vesting stock options disclosed earlier this month.

Before we open the call to your questions, I'll provide some details about second quarter expectations. First, on orders. Second quarter orders will be higher compared to the first quarter. We expect another quarter of strong order growth, where sequentially from Q1 to Q2, we expect to see 15%-20% order growth. Consolidated second quarter organic revenue growth is expected to be in the low single digits. This is also the case in each operating segment. As a reminder, on the top and bottom line, we ship quite a bit of product in the second quarter of 2025 into China before the tariffs went into effect. This quarter has that as a headwind. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA margins should be relatively flat versus Q2 2025. Nuclear and Safety segment adjusted EBITDA margins should also be relatively flat despite the margin dilutive impacts from the Paragon acquisition.

Excluding Paragon's margins, margin dilutive impact, Nuclear and Safety segment adjusted EBITDA margins are expected to expand. Regarding Paragon, we expect second quarter revenue to be slightly lower than first quarter, but still posting double-digit revenue growth versus last year. We maintain our prior expectations of approximately 25% full-year revenue growth for Paragon, and we continue to expect low 20s EBITDA margins. Lastly, Medical segment margins should expand slightly. Recall, Medical segment margins in last year's second quarter expanded almost 300 basis points, so we're lapping another tough comp in that segment. With that, let's open the call to your questions. Operator?

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that analysts limit themselves to one question and a follow-up so that others have the opportunity to do so as well.

One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from James West with Melius Research. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Morning, James.

Tom, you gave some, you know, macro comments in your prepared remarks. I'd love to hear a little bit of expansion there given I saw you in February, you were already, you know, pretty bullish, and then of course, we had the Middle East conflict. The DOE has been very active, as you're well aware, you know, shepherding nuclear. I'd love to hear if there's been, and I'm sure there has been, but what you're seeing in terms of acceleration of kind of the nuclear build-out in the U.S. and also, the nuclear, you know, renaissance that we're seeing more globally.

Yeah, James. I think there are three important dimensions to it overall. Far and away, the single most important is the dynamic being experienced right now by the installed base. Recognizing that today, if you look at the American nuclear fleet, they're running at very high capacity factors, typically in the low 90% range overall. Globally, we just had recent statistics updated that last year the global fleet ran at about an 82% capacity factor. The bottom line is that a few important things have profoundly changed psychology for the owners of those assets overall. Firstly, you know, as I noted in my commentary, only a few years ago, the posture was very defensive. Many nuclear power plants were operating at very thin margins or even negative margins.

There was a general orientation toward premature decommissioning of nuclear power plants, but you know, incredibly defensive CapEx and OpEx posture overall to kind of minimize the attendant expense. What we're seeing now is the exact opposite. Given the fact that even with AI demand as it is today, the world simply does not have enough electrical generating capacity, and that will always be the constraining factor in any reasonable scenario overall. It's created a very compelling economic incentive for operators to fundamentally change the way they manage these assets. The biggest single impact is that even though we're seeing life extensions in the American market to from 60 years of permitted operating life to 80 years, the majority of operators are really thinking 100.

If you imagine the psychology shift going from a shutdown posture to one where I want to operate these assets for another 40 years, that profoundly impacts the solutions that they need to shore up these power plants. Most immediately, you know, we see that in Certrec and Paragon through their various activities, which are essential for the daily operation of the power plant. What we're seeing just beyond that is that there is a compelling need and a compelling opportunity to broadly upgrade Instrumentation and Control systems, which include in-core detection, neutron flux measurement, radiation monitoring systems, and reactor protection systems. Beyond that, there's a need to upgrade and consolidate and digitally enable radiation protection systems.

We're beginning to see the leading edge of that demand right now, not only in the U.S. market, but broadly on a global basis. This is just a, you know, I can't overstate how profoundly this impacts the overall opportunity set as it relates to the global operating fleet. Clearly, we are seeing a lot more action in advanced reactors, the so-called small modular reactors. We obviously see that in our order book, you know, if you look at the leading players here, if we were to take the top 20 best capitalized SMR plays with the highest level of technological readiness, we almost run the tables with that group in terms of our position of prominence, orders booked, and the level of engagement.

We're very bullish on that sector. It continues to move to the left, and most recently undergirded by the IPO of X-Energy, which has traded very, very well over the last week. Beyond that, you have the utility scale. You know, the activity that we've cited previously with Westinghouse having plans to build 14 AP1000s internationally, nine in Ukraine, three in Poland, two in Bulgaria, an early commit by the Indians to build another six, potentially 10 additional AP1000s in the American market obviously will play in all of that. Beyond that, you have EDF Framatome, which has immediate plans in the near term to initiate three projects in France at Penly, at Bugey, and Gravelines.

Again, given the strategic alliance we have with EDF Framatome, we expect to play there. Beyond that, it's Rosatom, it is the, it is KHNP, KEPCO, the Koreans, continued activity in China. What we're seeing overall is also an acceleration in new build commits and obviously that bolsters the whole nuclear thesis for us.

That's very helpful, Tom. Thanks, thanks for that. Maybe for Brian, the medical business came in pretty strong this quarter. I know 2025 was a more difficult year with a lot of headwinds. Is this a one-off or are the headwinds now behind us, and we should expect this kind of performance from medical going forward?

Yeah. I mean, look, we, you know, we're sticking to our guidance on the medical side for the year. You know, where we were at the beginning of the year to where we are today, I would say we're. You know, we haven't changed any of the numbers, but I think we continue to be more optimistic in our viewpoints that this business has green shoots, you know, sprouting. You know, we're still watching the Asian markets, which is where we've had many of our challenges in the U.S. market. Our software business continues to perform well. Our services business continues to form well or perform well. The order we got with Varian really kind of bolsters some backlog for this year and the next couple years, and it's good business for us.

I would say, you know, we haven't changed our guidance range, but I would say our confidence level is better than it was even three months ago.

Our next question comes from Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Good morning.

Hey, Joe.

Morning.

Thought the... Look, the order backlog commentary was really good, not just this quarter, but just the start to the second quarter. I was wondering if you could maybe just give a little bit more details. Obviously, the $35 million SMR order's in there for 2Q. Just maybe some more details around that 15%-20% sequential move that you expect in orders.

Yeah.

In the second quarter would be helpful. Thank you.

I think it's indicative of everything Tom actually just talked about, which is, you know, the nuclear market continues to be good for us. We're clearly expecting, you know, another order or a few on the larger side. Right now, the timing of those are always a little bit, you know, hard to predict. You know, that has to be in there for us to hit those numbers. Again, you know, the order dynamics are playing, continue to play to our favor. I don't wanna get into anything project specific 'cause, you know, these things move a bit. I do think it's very constructive that the team, the teams believe that we will see kind of sequential order growth year-over-year.

I think if you looked at last year, we were a little bit flat, you know, orders Q1 to Q2 as well. This is obviously a step change there. Paragon contributes to that as well. I think, you know, the flywheel is beginning to spin. I think we're still early innings. Maybe one other comment, Joe.

Sure.

The other positive is last year we saw the large orders all end in Q4. I think what, you know, what people should focus on is we're seeing that much earlier in the year this year. One, that gives us revenue opportunity this year for sure. You know, but much of these larger orders probably end up more in 2027 than 2026, candidly, from a kind of materiality standpoint. Two, you know, there isn't a wait and see game on whether this is happening. Like, this is gonna happen every quarter. You're gonna see some things, you know, tick off the box from that pipeline. I think that's very constructive. I think it's healthy, and I think it does show that the dynamic is positive. I would just reiterate something I said.

I mean, two orders that were above $10 million that we booked in the first quarter, we did not have in our pipeline at the end of the year. You know, I think that's very constructive about what else we're seeing.

Joe, the other thing I'd tag in on is that Doug VanTassell, the CEO of Paragon, and I have been doing a systematic roadshow with chief nuclear officers spanning the American fleet. I will tell you, the dialogue there is incredible. Again, I cannot overstate the importance of the integrated Mirion and Paragon sales team. You know, the Mirion's, the Paragon sales team, these guys are apex predators. They have a maniacal focus on customer satisfaction. We're seeing that the added dialogue, the increased customer intimacy is really, you know, kind of opening the aperture as we think about the opportunity set, both in the near term and the long term.

Yeah, that's super helpful, and obviously Paragon off to a great start for you guys. I guess maybe just my follow-on question, and it does actually segue well from what you just said earlier, Brian, regarding, like, the backlog conversion. It's really two questions, right? If you think about the guidance and how you'd set up the guidance for 2026, like maybe just talk a little bit about what the confidence you have in hitting kind of the ramp in EBITDA as the year progresses. Then secondly, because you know, the backlog is now step changing, like how much visibility are you now starting to get into 2027, you know, given that maybe some of these things are a little bit longer cycle?

Yeah. I think a couple things. I think if we had a different viewpoint on our EBITDA revenue guidance, we would've made a change in the quarter. That's what we've, you know, always done is as we see it, we call it. I think we continue to be confident in our guide. I think as you think about, you know, 2027, you know, I think 2026 is really a bit back-end loaded. That's clear 'cause you've seen first quarter, I gave you guidance on second quarter. I also think that plays into how we're starting to see and think about 2027 shaping up.

I'm not gonna obviously guide that now, but I think we're very constructive on what we're seeing kind of beyond 2026, and I think that shows in the backlog.

You're gonna see, I mean, if you just do the math, by the way, you'll see backlog growth again in the second quarter. I think that sets us up well.

Our next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Andy.

Maybe a bit of a follow-up on that. You didn't change anything in terms of your line of sight on your expected segment revenue growth for the year. In nuclear and safety, you started out flat as expected in nuclear power. Maybe just talk about the visibility toward getting back to double digits as you said you will. Do you basically have the order coverage giving Q1 and your commentary on Q2, or do you still need to see some bigger nuclear power orders to reach that double-digit growth in 2026?

Yeah. I mean, look, I think the comp set gets a bit easier as the quarters go on the nuclear power side by quarter. You know, Q1 was our largest nuclear power kind of comp for 2025. I think that's one. I think if you look at the order, you know, just even the large order dynamics and what we're seeing, I mean, it's definitely nuclear power heavy. We continue to like double-digit growth in 2026 for nuclear power. By the way, that's-

Okay. Got it.

That's pre-Paragon double-digit growth.

Right.

You know, we're talking about in Paragon where, you know, a lot of the revenue is nuclear power as well. Although we commented, you know, the DOE stuff, we're starting to see sprouts for sure. They had very good order growth there. You know, we're talking Paragon, 25% kind of organic growth for them if you if we own them in 2025, 2026. So, you know, I think, I think we feel good about the dynamics happening within the nuclear power segment across both brands.

Very helpful. Then kind of similar in medical, you didn't change your expectation for RTQA in 2026, but you did mention green shoots in Q1 and hardware, and obviously the large camera order associated with Varian seems quite interesting. I think you announced a closer relationship with Varian, maybe it was 1.5 years Ago or something like that. Maybe give us more color in whether RTQA now should see more opportunities with Varian and should see accelerating growth from here.

Maybe I'll take it and you can chime in. I mean, look, it's the first quarter. You know, I think we wanna see how the year continues to progress. Again, that RTQA order wasn't on our radar six months ago. And so I think that gives us kind of added visibility. Let's get through the second quarter, which is our toughest comp by far in the RTQA business because of the China shipments, et cetera. I, like I said, I think to in an earlier comment, I think we have more conviction around our medical number today than we did, you know, even in February.

Our next question comes from Tomo Sano with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning, Tom and Brian.

Morning.

Good morning.

Thank you. I wanted to ask you about the Paragon, which has shown strong contract wins and grows. Can you update us on integration progress, cultural alignment, and specifically any R&D cost synergies realized so far? Also, does the 30%+ adjusted EBITDA margin target for 2028 remain intact post-acquisitions? Any color appreciated. Thank you.

Yeah, let me, let me start, Tomo. Firstly, on the, on the cultural alignment, I think this was really a critical determinant in our ability to acquire Paragon, to begin with because there's such a high degree of, compatibility culturally between the two organizations. They're very entrepreneurial, very risk-on, very engaged, very motivated to build a great business. The, the cultural symbiosis between Paragon and Mirion is extraordinarily high. To a very gratifying extent, you know, we are seeing that resonate in the early days of the integration, where the two organizations have come together broadly, very collaboratively.

I think as we walk together on both sides of the table, we're all more excited about the art of the possible here, what we can do together and kind of the goodness of fit overall. In terms of the synergy profile, generally our playbook is that our first standing rule is the Hippocratic Oath, which is first, do no harm. We're very careful when we acquire a new asset to walk together, to learn from one another, to be very careful about identifying the opportunity set. In the wake of that, priority number one is infrastructure. It's connecting the, you know, the central nervous system of the company, standardizing health and welfare benefits, HR processes, IT, financial and accounting standards and processes, and the like.

Immediately following that, the focus is on commercial synergies, recognizing, you know, this was the single biggest pillar in our investment thesis here. As we've stated, I think clearly that's paying off faster than we anticipated. We see a significant opportunity to enhance and increase the commercial leverage on both sides of the table and clearly that's beginning to spill in the backlog already. Beyond that, we have cost optimization, and beyond that, we have the technological leverage as we embed the augmented capabilities of each organization into our R&D pipeline and really kind of evolve how we're thinking about new product solutions and the enhanced technological building blocks that will go into that. In the near term, no, we are not calling out any specific cost synergies.

I would tell you our track record here is great. Maybe the best, most recent example, just based on scale, would be the acquisition of Sun Nuclear, which we acquired in 2020. In that case, you know, we took a great company, very vibrant company that had strong performance, and we've added about 10 points of margin to that business since we've owned it. You know, clearly our expectation is that Paragon will become accretive. Clearly our drive and our motivation is to make that happen sooner rather than later. To be clear, that's a shared objective. It's not just Mirion wants this and Paragon is reluctantly following. I think we're all in on driving toward this, and our goal is to make it happen very quickly.

The final point is on the 30% EBITDA target by 2028, which, you know, we announced in our investor day a couple of years ago. We continue to stand by it. You know, this year I think we've guided 25%-26% EBITDA margins. Obviously, we're trying to drive toward the upper end of that range. If you accept that leaves a go-get of another four points of margin expansion over the next two years. Half or more of that we expect will come from absorption as we continue to drive greater volume against a largely fixed cost structure and one that inflates at a much slower rate than our pricing capabilities on the top line.

If you look at the remaining two points, you know, that final go-get is gonna be driven by self-help. Here it's gonna be continued improvement in procurement processes, conversion processes, continuing to rationalize our industrial footprint overall, improving pricing heuristics. The big, the big lever here clearly is going to be AI. We're investing very heavily in AI right now, which arguably in the near term, and this is reflected in our guide, is margin dilutive. The rest of it is simply a choice. Anytime I want to, I can find the balance of that go-get. It's a decision entirely within our control organizationally.

Again, given the enhanced capabilities that we see, both for cost and efficiency improvements internally, but also in terms of evolving our customer-facing products that we're pretty bullish on our ability to get there.

Thank you, Tom. Just one follow-up for your nuclear medicine business. Could you discuss the current sales momentum and outlook as well as the margin profile and the key drivers for growth and profitability going forward, please?

That's a big, that's a big follow-up, Tomo. You know what I, you know, what I said in my prepared remarks is, you know, we thought the organic growth in that business would be a bit more back-end loaded. Look, this is another, this is just like Sun. This is a great margin story. You know, we bought these three businesses and put them together between 2020 and 2023, I think we bought ec². You know, even combined, it was a single-digit kind of EBITDA business that today is accretive to Mirion's margin profile. You know, we continue to like our ability to expand margins there over time. New products is something we're working on. Now that's more a 2027 probably introduction than a 2026.

Operationally, we are very focused on procurement, continuing to streamline the workforce there. Our ability to grow is our number one priority. You know, we continue to like that business. It is a bit back-end loaded this year. But we continue to be confident in our ability to grow that business double digits.

Our next question comes from Quinn Fredrickson with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Thank you. I wanted to ask about the green shoots in RTQA commentary. Brian, you started talking about the Asian markets in response to an earlier question. How are trends playing out in those markets, specifically relative to your expectations, and are you starting to see the benefits of some of the actions you've taken there playing out yet?

Again, I think, you know, I characterize those as green shoots, right? We're seeing some positive momentum. I like what Mark and the team have done to set us on the right foot. It will take quarters to kind of see this, you know, come to fruition. Those markets don't move always as fast. I think we're probably a little bit more optimistic about China. I think we're still a little bit hesitant on what we're seeing in Japan. I think we have a good game plan, and we're absolutely moving forward. I think the order with Varian kinda gives us some nice underlying stability in that RTQA that candidly, that product line was not, you know, it's new. You know, that's all incremental growth year over year for us.

We continue to watch the U.S. market. I mean, I think we were pleased with what we saw in the first quarter. Again, software services led the way, but our hardware business did better than what we expected in the first quarter. You know, we're not ready to move the numbers. I think we wanna see a bit more production out of that business.

Thank you. Wonder if you could give us a little more color on the $35 million April SMR order. That seems to be a pretty sizable order for an SMR, and you said there's more still to come. Is that across multiple SMRs or a higher revenue opportunity per megawatt with Paragon? Just any additional context you could share there.

Yeah, Quinn, it's with a single leading SMR player. It is supportive of again, kind of the central nervous system of the power plant supporting instrumentation and control. You know, it's a nice win. We slash Paragon have been working on this for quite a while. Again, when you look at the activity in this market overall, what we're seeing is again, a general movement to the left of the dynamics, particularly for these first-of-a-kind orders. We continue to be more constructive on the SMR market overall.

You know, we've highlighted previously that based upon intrinsic scale diseconomies in specifically Instrumentation and Control, generally speaking, the revenue opportunity per megawatt of output of an SMR is quite a bit higher than it would be for utility scale. You know, we've cited, you know, a loosey-goosey estimate of about 60% higher on previous calls, and we continue to sustain that point of view.

Yeah. I would just add that the 60% was pre-Paragon, you know. We haven't done the math or we haven't guided to what the Paragon. You can see kind of the scale here.

Our next question comes from Jeff Grampp with Northland Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Morning, guys.

Morning.

I wanted to circle back on Paragon here and hoping if you guys can elaborate a bit more on this tip-of-the-spear kind of language you position them as. I'm curious, you know, does that positioning give you guys a differentiated view or read into, you know, the growth potential underlying nuclear power, that perhaps, you know, other offerings within kind of what's called legacy Mirion maybe perhaps, you know, wasn't available to the company pre-Paragon? Just, you know, any other kind of commentary on what that kind of tip-of-the-spear position facilitates for Mirion more broadly? Thanks.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll take that one. If you, if you look at the legacy Paragon business, you know, basically they've been in the business of keeping power plants operating. They provide critical spare parts, which in many cases, are no longer supplied by the original OEM. In some cases, that means reverse engineering, previously offered electromechanical components in a power plant. In some cases, it means taking a commercially available part that does not have a nuclear qualification. This could be a backup generator, a chiller, batteries, other components. Paragon puts that through a very formal commercial-grade dedication, which makes it a nuclear qualified component. Beyond that, they also offer essentially a brokerage platform for available spare parts within the industry.

Those three core activities, again, kind of keep the fleet operating. They're very critical supplier to the industry overall. Given the nature of this business, I think it's intuitive that the level of customer intimacy and dialogue has to be very high. That latter piece is really kind of the critical catalyst for the greater demand traction we're seeing overall with Mirion products. Conversely, if you look at legacy Mirion products, we have been focused on instrumentation and control through in-core and ex-core detectors, through neutron flux monitoring systems, through radiation monitoring systems, and also radio protection in a variety of form factors, software, systems and services overall. That platform or that historical offering has also been augmented by complementary capabilities that Paragon has in I&C.

When you put these things together, firstly, because again, of the greater intimacy of the Paragon sales team, you know, we're seeing a clearer, higher resolution demand signal overall from the power plants compared with what we've historically experienced based upon a, you know, fundamentally different sales model at legacy Mirion. That's certainly elevating our view, elevating our level of bullishness as to what's happening in the industry. Beyond that, it also gives us much earlier dialogue about those complementary areas of overlap on that Venn diagram, particularly in Instrumentation and Control. You know, we're thrilled by this acquisition. We're thrilled to bring our two companies together. You know, this is a great pickup for us.

Our next question comes from Nick Amicucci with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys. Just wanted to kind of the backlog commentary as well. Obviously, you know, Paragon a little bit dilutive on the adjusted EBITDA margin this quarter. Just as we think about these new orders rolling in, how can we think about the margin profile within backlog currently? I mean, you kind of spoke to it, I believe, on the 2028 kind of target, but just wanna kind of level set there.

Yeah, thanks, Nick. Look, I would characterize the margins in backlog as exactly as we would have expected and, you know, give us the ability to hit the numbers, you know, we're talking about. You know, we definitely and really think about our margin backlog more as contribution margin versus, you know, what the base margin is. You know, I don't think there's anything too scary in there that we're worried about from a margin perspective going forward. You know, the only maybe comment I would make is, you know, some of the project business can be a little bit lower margin.

I think the teams have done a very nice job really working hard to make sure that the incremental margin on those bigger projects actually benefits Mirion over the long term. We're focused on margins, and we're focused on cash as it comes to these larger business projects.

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Tom Logan for closing comments.

Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate your time and attention this morning. We appreciate your support. Again, an important quarter for the company. We feel great about the order momentum. We continue to have confidence in our outlook for the year. We continue to have confidence in our drive toward the 30-point EBITDA target. You know, as I've noted historically, we built this company in an environment of very difficult headwinds and always found a way to grow the top line and add value in a way that outpaced the markets, the peer set in general. It is tremendously exciting right now to have not only tailwinds but generational tailwinds supporting the business overall.

We're excited to continue to show what we can do, and we'll look forward to speaking to all of you on our Q2 call. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.