VPG

Hello, thank you for standing by. My name is Bella, I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to VPG first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Cantor, Senior Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Bella, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to VPG's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Our press release and slides have been posted on our website. An audio recording of today's call will be available on the internet for a limited time and can also be accessed on the VPG website. Today's remarks, including the targets described in our updated operating model, are governed by the safe harbor provisions of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Our actual results may vary from forward-looking statements, and there can be no assurance that such results, including the targets described in our updated operating model, will be achieved. For a discussion of the risks associated with VPG's operations, we encourage you to refer to our SEC filings, especially the Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and our other recent SEC filings.

On the call today are Ziv Shoshani, CEO and President, and Bill Clancy, CFO. Now I'll turn the call to Ziv for some prepared remarks. Ziv?

Thank you, Steve. I will begin with some commentary on our results and trends for the first quarter. Bill will provide financial details in our outlook for the second quarter of 2026. We will also discuss our revised target operating model. Moving to slide three. To summarize our Q1 results, we delivered a strong start to the year, with first quarter revenue of $84.4 million, up 18% year-over-year, reflecting broad-based growth across all three segments. Orders were particularly robust at $102.1 million, growing 26% sequentially, driving a book-to-bill of 121, our strongest since 2022. We increased backlog, particularly in the Sensor segment, which positions us for continued growth into the second quarter and for the second half of the year.

Gross margin improved from the fourth quarter and the prior year. We continue to implement additional cost reduction programs. Despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty from geopolitical tensions, booking trends remained strong. Demand was driven by precision resistors from semiconductor equipment and for data center and fiber optics equipment, supporting the build-out of AI data centers. Orders in avionics, military, and space markets also improved. In addition, orders generated from our business development initiatives totaled $10 million in the first quarter, putting us on track to meet our 2026 goal of $45 million. With our new Chief Business and Product Officer and Chief Operating Officer organizations now in place, we are focused on disciplined execution of both our near-term priorities and long-term strategic plans. While there is still work ahead, we are already seeing improved visibility into our sales funnel and stronger alignment across VPG.

During the first quarter, we continued to launch new marketing programs and further sharpen our focus on priority markets, key customers, and our most important growth drivers. I'll now review business performance by segment. Moving to slide four. Beginning with our Sensor segment, first quarter revenue increased 10% sequentially and 23% year-over-year. Compared to the fourth quarter, we had higher sales of precision resistors in the test and measurement and AMS markets and higher sales of strain gages in the general industrial market. Bookings in the Sensors were particularly strong, totaling $45.2 million, up 29% sequentially and representing the highest level in 15 quarters. This resulted in a healthy book-to-bill ratio of 1.36. The sequential growth in bookings reflected strong broad-based demand driven by the industry-wide ramp up in AI adoption.

With Sensors, we saw particularly robust demand related to AI infrastructure. Orders grew for precision resistors used in semiconductor front-end and back-end equipment, supporting the manufacturing and testing of AI-related chips and systems, as well as in data centers and fiber optics equipment. Bookings were strong for precision resistors in defense applications. We also continued to see demand for strain gauges used in humanoid pre-production prototypes. With Sensors backlog reaching its highest level since Q1 of 2023, we accelerated hiring and training of additional manufacturing personnel to support our planned production ramps. Turning to humanoid robotics, we shipped approximately $600,000 of product to humanoid makers in the first quarter. In the second quarter, we expect to more than double that amount.

Given our customers' forecasts for a more significant ramp of production in the second half of the year, we have increased our internal projection for 2026. Nonetheless, the precise timing and scale of production ramps remain unclear. In addition, we began early discussions with a fourth humanoid maker, a startup developing humanoid platforms for defense, home use, and industrial applications. Moving to slide five. Turning to our Weighing Solutions segment, first quarter sales grew 9% from the fourth quarter and 14% from a year ago. The sequential increase was primarily due to higher sales in our other markets for medical equipment, precision ag equipment, consumer bicycles, and in our transportation market for heavy-use trucks. Weighing Solutions orders were up 17% sequentially to $32.9 million, resulting in a book-to-bill of 1.09.

Orders included annual bookings of onboard weighing systems and higher bookings in our industrial weighing and general industrial markets. Moving to slide six. Turning to our Measurement Systems segment, revenue trends were mixed in the first quarter as revenue of $21 million decreased 7% sequentially, but was 14% higher than a year ago. Sales of DTS ruggedized miniature data acquisition modules reached a record high, driven by defense missile test projects. This was offset by lower sales to the steel market. First quarter measurement system orders of $24 million increased 32% from the fourth quarter and resulted in a book-to-bill of 1.15. The sequential growth reflected higher DTS and PI orders in AMS for the testing of military jet engines and for hypersonic missiles. Demand for measurement systems used in steel rolling mills softened despite pockets of growth in India and North America.

Orders grew for DSI's R&D tool used for development of new metal alloys. One of the technology highlights for DTS and Measurement Systems this quarter was the Artemis II launch to the moon, which included DTS data loggers on board. DTS data loggers were used to measure extreme forces for the astronauts experienced during the launch and re-entry that can't be fully replicated on Earth. In addition to NASA projects, DTS modules have been used in similar tests for SpaceX Dragon crew capsule, as well as for Blue Origin platforms. Moving to slide seven. This quarter, we are pleased to introduce our updated target operating model, which reflects a path to faster organic revenue growth, higher profits and cash flow, and significant creation of long-term stockholders value.

Under the new model, we are targeting compounded annual organic growth of 8%-10% over the next three years, which is higher than our previous model for organic growth. We expect our Sensors and Measurement System businesses to grow at or above these rates. Our model target a gross margin of 46.5% and operating margin of 14.5%-15.5% and an EBITDA margin of 18.5%-20.5%. This model includes approximately $5 million of annual incremental cost related to the new CBPO and COO organizations, IT investments, and new incentive comp plans. At the upper end of the model, we have the potential to deliver 50% flow through EBITDA on each incremental dollar revenue. Moving to slide 8. The top line of our model is driven by 2 factors.

First, we are increasingly aligned with the attractive secular growth areas where VPG has differentiated high-performance technology. These opportunities are being driven by advancements in industrial automation systems, which rely on accurate, reliable, and highly precise sensing and measurements. That requirement directly aligns with VPG core strength and our long-term history supporting mission-critical applications. While adoption is still in the early stages, we are already supporting emerging use cases across multiple markets, including advanced robotics, semiconductor equipment used in AI processing, and data center and fiber optics infrastructure. For humanoid robots specifically, our model assumes that revenue growth approximately 50% annually from 2025 levels. We are building capacity and infrastructure today to support the potential for much higher levels of growth.

Second, our sales and marketing and business development operating model is now being transformed into cross-company processes, IT platforms, and execution discipline, which are expected to support the growth of both cyclical and secular growth markets. In addition, we continue to see durable long-term opportunities in aerospace and defense. While demand can fluctuate quarter to quarter, investment trends remain solid. Technical requirements are increasing, and these markets continue to align well with VPG differentiated capabilities. Operating leverage is a core element of our model. Under our COO-led operating structure, we have a clear plan to deliver more than $20 million of cost reductions and efficiency improvements over the next three years. These operational excellence initiatives are targeted at creating structurally more competitive cost base, not just a near-term margin improvements. Our cost programs focused on manufacturing footprint optimization, increased automation, and procurement efficiencies across our global supply chain.

Importantly, these initiatives also support increased market share by improving execution, shortening lead times, and enabling efficient scaling as demand increases. In summary, our operating model reflects faster organic growth and attractive profitability, supported by differentiated technology, durable secular demand drivers, and a more focused and efficient organization. We believe this positions VPG well to create long-term value for our customers and stockholders. I will now turn it over to Bill Clancy. Bill?

Thank you, Ziv. Referring to slide nine and the reconciliation table of those slide deck, our first quarter of 2026 revenues were $84.4 million. Gross margin of 39% in the first quarter improved from the fourth quarter. Sequentially by segment, gross margin for the Sensors of 34.8% increased primarily due to higher volume, favorable product mix, and manufacturing efficiencies, partially offset by unfavorable foreign exchange rates and higher personnel costs. Weighing Solutions gross margin of 34.2% increased from the fourth quarter, mainly due to higher volume and favorable foreign exchange rates. Gross margin for measurement systems of 52.6% decreased from the fourth quarter, primarily due to lower volume and wage increases, partially offset by favorable product mix. Moving to slide 10. Our first quarter operating margin was 0.4%.

Adjusted for $449,000 restructuring costs and $837,000 of stock-based compensation, adjusted operating margin was 1.9%. The restructuring costs primarily relate to severance costs from the implementation of our new CBPO and COO organization, and the adjustment for stock-based compensation expense reflects our evolving compensation structure due to these recent organizational changes, including the hiring of senior executives and the expansion of equity-based incentive programs to attract and retain key talent. Selling general and administrative expense for the first quarter was $32.1 million, or 38% of revenues, which was higher than Q4, reflecting hiring for the new organizational structure, incentive compensation accruals for 2026, and unfavorable FX.

Unfavorable foreign exchange rates impacted adjusted operating margin in the first quarter by $800,000 compared to the fourth quarter and $1.3 million from a year ago. GAAP loss was $319,000, or a loss of $0.02 per diluted share. Adjusted net earnings was $907,000, or $0.07 diluted share, adjusted for restructuring costs, stock-based compensation, and the impact of foreign currency exchange rates on our balance sheet. The GAAP tax rate for the first quarter of 2026 was 81.2%, and operationally, it was 31.5%. For 2026, we are assuming an operational tax rate of approximately 26%. Moving to slide 11.

Adjusted EBITDA was $5.9 million, or 7% of revenue, compared to $6.2 million, or 7.8% of revenue in the fourth quarter.

CapEx in the first quarter was $3 million. For 2026, we are forecasting $14 million-$16 million for capital expenditures. Adjusted free cash flow is a negative $3.7 million for the first quarter due to the GAAP net loss and the higher working capital required to support higher demand. This compares to a positive $1.3 million in the fourth quarter. As of the end of the first quarter, our cash position was $82.5 million, and our long-term debt was $20.6 million. The resulting net cash position of $62 million and the unused portion of our credit facility provides ample liquidity to support our business requirements and to fund M&A.

Regarding the outlook, for the second quarter of 2026, we expect net revenues to be in the range of $85 million-$90 million, assuming constant first fiscal quarter of 2026 exchange rates. In summary, quarterly bookings exceeded $100 million for the first time since 2022 and resulted in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.21. We continued our progress with our business development initiatives, including the humanoid robots, and we are excited about the potential of our new organization, which is reflected in our new target model. With that, let's open the lines for questions. Thank you.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of John Franzreb with Sidoti & Company. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and congratulations on a good start to the year. I'd like to start with the guidance. It's been a while since we've been at that kind of a revenue threshold. Can you kind of talk about how we should think about the profit profile, that kind of revenue? Should it be in line with historical gross margins, or should we think about it in terms of incremental operating margin contributions like we had in the past?

Good morning, John. Let me start by saying that the guidance is already based on the new model.

Okay.

The new model is setting a new baseline in respect to the high organic growth, high organic growth in the prior model, in addition to a much more robust and significant cost reduction over $20 million over the next three years. In addition to that, we are taking into account the new investments in respect to the new organization, the CBPO and COO, which would increase the SG&A by $5 million. The scalable model where we should see incremental operating margin based on higher revenues would remain, but the baseline would change. The historical financials were based on the old models, while the new guidance is based on the new model. The incremental, as I indicated before, by having incremental revenue, which we should see a more substantial incremental operating margins as we did before.

That's great to hear. That's great to hear. You know, you pointed this out as even your prepared remarks. You know, the bookings profile takes us back to when coming out of the post-COVID bookings, when we had a bunch of quarters of substantial book-to-bills. We're halfway through the second quarter. Do you see that kind of scenario unfolding in the current year, that we're gonna have sustained booking profile after, I guess, three years of averaging under 1.0?

Yeah. You're correct. The absolute bookings mainly, you know, reminds what or maybe in a way similar to what we had in 2022. The bookings profile are different than before. Currently, the booking are strong in demand for test and measurement, semiconductor equipment, data center, fiber optics, and avionic, military, and space.

in addition to general industrial. What we see is very strong demand around AI infrastructure in addition to defense. While in 2022, the general industrial were much stronger. The net bookings could be similar, but the profile is very different. Regarding your other question, we are optimistic regarding how the year is going to look like. At this point in time, despite our short visibility, we do see and believe that we will see a continued positive trend also moving into Q2.

Got it. One more question, I'll go back in the queue, let someone else take the lead. I do wanna go back to the quarter that you just reported. Revenues came in somewhat better than expected. When you look back at what your initial expectations were versus the revenue profile for the quarter, where was the biggest upside?

The biggest upside. Okay, let me say the following. Since we have longer lead items in respect to shorter lead items, what we have seen naturally on the shorter lead items higher demand than what we have anticipated. To that respect, I think it was avionic, military, and space in the measurement systems where we have a shorter cycle time.

Got it. Thanks, Ziv Shoshani. Congratulations again.

Thank you.

Bye.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Josh Nichols with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. Great to see big milestone bookings over $100 million for the quarter. I want to dive in a little bit more just on the humanoid aspect. Like, one, you mentioned there's now you're in early discussions with fourth humanoid developer. Just at a high level, can you characterize, one, like the size and tier of that potential customer? And just as one follow on, you mentioned, like, the humanoid assumption was that you'd be growing humanoid business at, like, a 50% CAGR through 2026, 2027, and what that kind of implies from a revenue perspective.

Sure. Absolutely, Josh. Let me first take your first question regarding the fourth humanoid, potential fourth humanoid customer. We are speaking about the startup company, which are in the very early stage in defense, home use, and industrial application, where we have reached to them, and I could say that we are in the very early engineering design discussions. As you know, it's with those customers, it's a fairly long cycle time, so it's good that we are there. They believe they have a strong business, I would say, prospects, and we are there to help them, you know, solve their problems in or their challenges in respect to Sensors. Regarding humanoid, we have, you know, the adoption rate is still fairly low.

There is a lot of discussion. There is a lot of hype around humanoid prospects. We still believe this is a very good market to be in. I could say that within the two customers where we have a more established, I would say, footprint, we are still in the pre-production levels. We did booked, I would say Or we have recognized revenue of $600,000 in Q1. We do believe that we could potentially more than double the revenues for humanoid revenues in the second quarter, and we are, I would say, much more optimistic regarding the second half of the year in respect to production volume. I would say that there are some discussions regarding already lower volume and higher production run rates.

Well, we have the infrastructure, and we are setting all the related supporting systems in order to support a much quicker, I would say, upside or demand from our customers. We are still, I would say, very optimistic regarding this trend. Regarding the models, since we wanted to provide the three years model, and naturally, we do believe that this is a strong sector, but we had to take certain assumptions. We did not want to, you know in order to be in our, I would say, in a more, in the, in a zone where we believe.

At this point, based on our own internal estimation, since we have no visibility, we decided to take 2025 as a baseline, and based on that, to go for 50% year-over-year increase, which we believe it's reasonable and feasible. It could be much higher than that, but at this point, we don't want to speculate. This was kind of a baseline assumption for the three-year model, which we wanted to announce.

Yeah. Thanks for that. It sounds like you're targeting for this year, like $5+ million for humanoid, growing that could be like, you know, maybe low teens millions of revenue on the out year. As you mentioned, based on some of the production ramps that some of these companies are talking about, you're using pretty conservative assumptions that are quite achievable, I would guess. Is that fair assessment?

Let me say that the math, you calculated is sounds right. I think that at this point in time, I would say that this is what we believe could be a reasonable, you know, assumption. We do hope that things would, you know, would turn quickly, but at this point, we have to put assumptions, and we feel comfortable with this assumption. You know, anything can happen.

Yep. Fair enough. Just last question from me. A lot of organizational investments. You have the CBPO, the COO, of course.

Yeah.

Could you give a little bit more color on, like, how these new functions have already been impacting the company's like go-to-market capabilities and these operational excellence initiatives that you've had underway? I'm curious to hear a little bit more there.

Let me start with the COO. With the COO, we already established a global procurement, a multi-year manufacturing footprint, streamlining manufacturing footprint, and also a team dedicated for improvement of efficiency and automation. I think that, to at least our model, calls for over $20 million savings in three years. This is a number which exceeds significantly our historical savings or improvements to that extent. We feel strong, and by the way, I will touch base on that in a second on the CBPO, but they are cross-company, I would say, operating units which are looking at the complete company and are setting those projects.

On the CBPO, we have now a unified, I would say, a unified marketing team. We have started to use much more marketing automation tool. We are moving into a unified CRM. We are moving into, I would say, a more unified data system, which is going to streamline or consolidate all the data from all the systems in the organizations, ERP, CRM, so on and so forth. We have already established a sales operation team cross-company, which are looking at lead time, service level, demand management. We are moving ahead with a more holistic approach to provide, I would say, a cross-company dashboards in order to set in line best practice processes and capabilities.

Appreciate the color there. Thanks. I'll hop back in the queue, let someone else take a turn.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Jason Smith with Lake Street Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanna look at that updated three-year target model. At a high level, do you expect the segment mix to be relatively stable compared to how it is today?

If you look at the three-year target model, you will see that the Sensor segment as well as the measurement systems segment outperform growth, outperform Weighing Solution. As we are looking for those segments to grow faster, we should expect also to see a more favorable so-called segment mix from a profitability standpoint. We do believe that at this point in time, the emerging growth engines are coming from Sensors and the Measurement Systems

Gotcha. That makes sense. Maybe I missed it, but the $45 million in orders that you're targeting for new business development in 2026, is that still the target, or do you think there's upside to that just given the traction you're currently seeing in Q1 and Q2?

As we indicated before, we booked in Q1 $10 million of business development projects. I would say that at this point in time since we are only reporting Q1, I would say that $45 million is still the target. It may change, of course, as we move ahead, but at this point in time, the $45 million was the original target and I believe that it's achievable.

Perfect. That's helpful. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Now we will take John Franzreb from Sidoti & Company. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Just to follow up, just the targets, the three-year target, what's the slope you expect of achieving those targets? Is it gonna progress linearly, or is it going to be back-ended?

If we, I'm sorry, John, if we speak about 2026, you speak about 2026 or the three-year target?

The three-year target, sir.

At this point, again, given the visibility.

Assume a linear baseline.

Okay.

It's, you know, it's really, it's three years. We have assumed a linear.

Got it. In light of some of the investments that you're undertaking, how does that change or does it change the CapEx budget, Well, starting with this year, and how should we think about it on a go-forward basis?

In a way, it's a very good question given the fact that the significant, over $20 million operational excellence which would relate also, to streamlining of manufacturing would require CapEx. At this point in time, we believe that, Okay, let me say it differently.

I still believe that we could meet the 4%-5% of revenue from a capital spending standpoint and achieve the necessary or the targeted operational excellence initiatives. It would be between 4%-5% of revenue.

Understood. You just kind of touched on this. You talked about streamlining to low-cost manufacturing sites. Does that mean moving within your existing footprint or adding to it?

We have a very large infrastructure, and we believe that we would be able to continue and consolidate within our own manufacturing footprint.

Got it. Just one last question circling back to the robotics, humanoid robotics comments. I guess the first question is, at the baseline from what I remember for 2025 was $4 million in revenues from humanoid robotics. That's the starting point?

This is correct.

Okay. Just wanted to double-check that. That there's been a lot in the press about downward pricing on vendors in humanoid robotics because the competitive level is, I don't know, getting pretty sizable out there. Are you seeing that? Can you just walk us through the pricing model and how that's playing out relative to what maybe what you thought, I don't know, three to six months ago?

Naturally this is a, you know, this is a way we cannot get to too much details in respect to the moving parts, pieces. I could say that on a high level, no doubt it's a very competitive market, and we believe that we are that we can play in that market. I would say that if we are speaking about on a high level, if we are speaking about tens of robots per week, on a high level, the content of all the sensing parts within a robot would be between 400 to 500.

While if the volume moves to many hundreds or more than that, we believe, again, there is no solid or final negotiation with anybody, but we believe that the expectation is to go to the roundabout, I would say, 150 to 250 levels.

Thank you, Ziv. Perfect. I appreciate the additional color. Congrats again.

There are no questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Steve Cantor for closing remarks.

Thank you, Bella. Before concluding, I would like to note that we will be participating in the B. Riley Investor Conference this month, and the Three Part Advisors and the Noble Conferences in June. We look forward to updating you next quarter. Thank you and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.