Broadwind, Inc. (BWEN) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings and welcome to Broadwind's First Quarter 26 Results Conference Call. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Thomas A. Ciccone.

Thank you. You may begin. Good morning, and welcome to the Broadwind First Quarter 26 Results Conference Call. Leading the call today is our CEO, Eric Blashford and I am Thomas A. Ciccone, company's vice president and chief financial officer. We issued a press release before the market opened today detailing our first quarter results. I would like to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward looking statements which by their nature are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results may differ materially. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the risk factors section of our latest annual filings with the SEC. Additionally, please note that you can find reconciliations of the historical non GAAP financial measures discussed during our call in the press release issued today. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Eric.

Thank you, Tom. And welcome to our call today. During the first quarter, we advanced our business transformation strategy while delivering strong revenue growth, margin realization, and order momentum in our core Gearing and Industrial Solutions segments. Higher demand in the power generation and critical infrastructure end markets drove revenue growth of more than 40% in gearing, and more than 60% in industrial solutions year over year. We anticipate our strategic exit from wind tower production will be complete in the 2026. So Gearing and Industrial Solutions will represent our core businesses. Moving forward. Excluding the divested product lines, within the heavy fabrication segment, Broadwind generated approximately $64 million of revenue on a trailing 12-month basis through the end of the first quarter. Our remaining businesses are higher growth more predictable, more profitable and not policy dependent, with meaningfully improved earnings quality. Over time, we will use our core Gearing and Industrial Solutions segments as a platform to grow a business of increasing scale and profitability. Within the Gearing segment, Q1 orders increased more than 65%, to $13.2 million supporting a backlog of $30.5 million Demand growth within the Gearing segment has been largely driven by strong customer activity in power generation, driven by the AI data center boom as well as industrial and mining markets. Quoting activity remains robust, with green shoots now forming in defense. Our Industrial Solutions segment had yet another strong quarter. As orders increased 44% year over year to $14.6 million driving backlog to a record $43.3 million Natural gas turbine demand remains very strong. Also driven by the AI center boom. As well as global electrification. Representing key growth drivers for this segment and we are happy to meet that demand. Operationally, we continue to invest in equipment and technology to increase our process capabilities reduce costs, and improve our profitability. In gearing, this quarter, we commissioned new very high precision grinding and mechanical balancing equipment to improve quality, reduce lead times in the production of high speed reduction gearing such as the gearing used on natural gas turbines. These technology improvements make us 1 of the most vertically integrated manufacturers of these types of critical components in the US. In the industrial solutions segment, we continue to make investments to improve our capacity and capabilities in order to meet the strong customer demand that we are experiencing from our key gas turbine equipment customers. We are on track to expand our local footprint in our North Carolina facility in Q2. This expansion will increase production space in North Carolina by 30% which is necessary to service our strong backlog that position us to handle the future growth projected in this market. Within our heavy fabrication segment, Q1 revenue decreased by 35% reflecting the sale of the Manitowoc Industrial Fabrications business last year, lower PRS demand, and the residual impact of the OEM directed biomaterial supply issue we experienced late last year. Revenue in our Gearing segment increased 42% year over year, to $8.5 million given the steady ramp up in power generation related demand. Within industrial solutions, revenue grew 64% year over year, to $9.2 million primarily due to stronger shipments of natural gas turbine components. In summary, the team and business continued to perform well as we sharpen our focus within adjacent higher margin precision manufacturing verticals. Our progress on an industry specific certifications such as AS9.1 thousand for aerospace and defense, and the cybersecurity maturity model certification or CMMC 2.0 for the defense market and others combined with targeted investments in capacity and capability, is yielding the results we expected and more. Our decision to strategically pivot from the unpredictable, uncertain, and policy dependent wind tower business and repurpose that capital toward higher growth, more predictable, more profitable markets positions us well for the future. With that, I will turn the call over to Tom for a discussion of our first quarter financial performance.

Thank you, Eric. Turning to Slide 5 for an overview of our first quarter performance versus the prior year period. First quarter consolidated revenues were $34.1 million representing an 8% decrease As expected, we experienced a decrease in our heavy fabrication segment. However, outside of the heavy fabrication segment, first quarter revenues within our gearing and industrial solutions segments increased more than 40%, 60%, respectively. Reflective of the strong order activity levels we have been recognizing. Adjusted EBITDA declined slightly to $2.2 million versus the prior year of $2.4 million However, adjusted EBITDA increased approximately 16% sequentially driven by improved capacity utilization, and a more profitable mix. First quarter orders remained strong at $37 million Orders increased within our Gearing and Industrial Solutions segment driven by strength in the power generation, and natural gas turbine verticals. While orders decreased within our heavy fabrication segment, reflective of our exit of the Manitowoc facility, late in 2025. Turning to Slide 6 for a discussion of our heavy fabrication segment. As expected with the wind down of the Manitowoc operations, we continue to see decreases in revenue, orders and backlog. We anticipate this to continue going forward especially in light of our recently announced sale of our Abilene facility pursuant to which we strategically exited the wind market. First quarter orders of $9.7 million primarily consists of wind tower production that will continue through 2026 out of the Abilene facility as well as some baseline PRS activity. As a reminder, we will retain the PRS business and we are evaluating segment reporting following the divestiture. We will provide additional detail as the process is finalized. First quarter revenues of $16.4 million and adjusted EBITDA of $1.7 million are both down versus the comparative prior year period. Due to the wind down of our Manitowoc operations the resolve raw material supply issue and lower PRS demand. Turning to Slide 7. Q1 gearing orders remained strong at $13.2 million an increase of 66% versus the prior year and 36% sequentially. We ended Q1 with over $30 million in backlog, a level we have not reached since 2023. As we noted in prior quarters, we continue to see strong orders from power generation, and oil and gas customers and that momentum continued into Q2 as we booked more than $6 million in orders in April alone. Segment revenue was $8.5 million an increase both sequentially and versus the prior year, reflective of the stronger recent order intake levels. We recognized adjusted EBITDA of $600 thousand compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $200 thousand in the prior year period. As our volumes continue to recover, we are improving our capacity utilization driving improved operating leverage. Turning to Slide 8. Industrial Solutions booked $15 million of new orders during the first quarter. 44% increase over the prior year. During the first quarter, the segment set a new record for both orders and backlog, and is on track to do so again in Q2 as it has already recorded over $10 million in orders during April alone. The $43 million backlog total is more than $5 million above the previous high watermark Set in Q4. Q1 represents the sixth straight quarter setting a record backlog level. Q1 segment revenue was $9.2 million up over 60% versus the prior year reflective of the elevated order levels received recently. As we noted last quarter, we expect this business will operate at these elevated revenue levels over the medium term. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $1.8 million or 19% of revenue. This represents a significant increase from the $500 thousand in adjusted EBITDA and 8.7% EBITDA margin in the prior year, as the segment benefited from improved capacity utilization and a more favorable mix of products sold. Turning to Slide 9. We ended the first quarter with total cash and availability on our credit facility of more than $25 million or $16.4 million after adjusting for the minimum excess availability requirement in place effective Q1. Pro forma for the sale of the Abilene facility our liquidity improves approximately $10 million reflective of credit availability adjustments and required debt payments. During Q1, operating working capital increased slightly as a decrease within our heavy fabrication segment was more than offset by increases within our gearing and industrial solutions segment in line with their increasing activity levels. Finally, with respect to our financial guidance, as noted last week, with the sale of the Abilene facility, we have elected to withdraw our full year 2026 financial guidance. That concludes my remarks. I will turn the call back over to Eric to continue our discussion.

Thanks, Tom. Now allow me to provide some thoughts as we move into Q2 and beyond. We continue to make a decisive shift toward increasingly stable, growing power generation critical infrastructure markets. The strategic moves we have made with our tower facilities position us to focus on higher growth, and higher margin opportunities that leverage our precision manufacturing expertise. And to do so with a strengthened balance sheet. We will complete our remaining wind tower orders through Q3 and then direct our full attention to our growth strategy. Our remaining facilities in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Sanford, North Carolina near Raleigh, have more than 450 thousand square feet of manufacturing space ready to serve our customers. Quarter upon quarter of strong order growth within the gearing and industrial solutions segments from power generation specifically within distributed power, as well as growing opportunities in both small frame and utility scale natural gas turbines support our strategy to expand in this market. Quote activity continues to increase in both gearing and industrial solutions. Generated by our ability to solve complex precision manufacturing and sourcing challenges faced by our customers in this growing market. We have prudently added resources to meet this demand in both divisions. In our gearing segment, we continue to execute our strategy to move beyond traditional gearing for new opportunities in other precision machine products. For power generation aerospace, and defense. We see the continuing strength incoming orders from the power generation sector as the beginning of a super cycle for which we are prepared. Expansion of our very high precision and vertically integrated capabilities to serve the high speed gear segment I mentioned earlier increases our value add to key customers. We are pleased with the increasing level of customer activity we are seeing in various new infrastructure related opportunities such as material processing and defense. We expect further inroads in defense as we complete our CMMC 2.0 certification later this year which is a requirement when producing certain defense related products. Lastly, there is also improving order activity in traditional gearing markets supporting oil and gas. Specifically the fracking aftermarket as certain customers begin putting older, rigs back in service. In Industrial Solutions, our commercial performance continues to set new records in both orders and backlog. The strong demand that we began experiencing in 2025 continues to accelerate in 2026. As the global demand for natural gas power generation equipment grows, and as our customers bring additional production capacity online, we believe this is an extended period of growth. Some of our key customers have sold out their production capacity for the remainder of the decade. Which gives us confidence that this period of strong demand is still in its early stages. In summary, I am pleased with the order growth, and the strategic actions we have taken over the last year and I am excited to execute our plan. Our divisions are well positioned to support the nation's growing need for power generation and infrastructure improvement. Which we see as long term opportunities for us. Our quality, quick response, and ability to solve complex manufacturing challenges for our customers continue to help us win new opportunities. We have refocused our business, are investing wisely, and are taking decisive strategic actions towards higher value growing end markets. We are encouraged that our order intake continues to grow positioning us for improved utilization, of our reduced manufacturing footprint in 2026. As we strengthen our foundation for steady, profitable growth serving the power generation critical infrastructure, and other key markets with high quality precision components and proprietary products to capitalize on improved demand in the years ahead. With that said, I will turn the call over to the moderator for the Q&A session.

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad. Confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. Our first question comes from Justin Clare with ROTH Capital Partners. Your line is now live.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions here.

Good morning, Justin.

Morning.

I wanted to start out with Heavy Fab. Just wanted to see how you would frame the conversion of the remaining back for Heavy Fab, the $25 million how do you expect that to convert between Q2 and Q3? And then just wanted to see how you are thinking about the inventory levels for the overall business as you convert the remaining orders for heavy fab here and then what the effect could be on your overall liquidity, Because I am imagining you may have a lower inventory level as you convert the remaining orders here.

Yes. Thanks, Justin. So of the $25 million of backlog, the overwhelming majority of this is towers related that will be completing out of the Abilene facility here. And that and that should be very, very ratable over the next 2 quarters. So you know, it is probably 5 months. Think of it you know, 1/5 over the next 5 months, if you will. So I think that you can you can call that fairly ratable you know, post close 3 I mean, post 1 here. The other thing I would mention is overall, when we are looking at not just inventory balances, but our operating working capital, have maybe $10 million of operating capital associated with our wind business at the end of the quarter. So we expect that will obviously decrease, but we are expecting that to be partially offset by increases within you know, our gearing and our biz segments as those continue to ramp up here, over the balance of the year? So there may be some benefit, but I think it will be muted.

Yeah. Got it. Okay. And then with the sale of Abilene, just wondering how we should think about the overall operating expenses for the business here. And how you anticipate that changing as you exit that wind tower business? And then any other actions we should be looking for in terms of things that you may be looking to do to optimize the business? As you shift to, you know, a focus on power generation and critical infrastructure?

Well, yeah, yeah, we do have, the operating expenses associated with that facility will go away as we exit the facility. I do not think that they are their cost structures significantly different than what we have within the other business units So it should we should not see any consolidated impact there. In terms of other costs, that we are looking at, we are, you know, we are looking at all of our costs and trying to optimize that in light of this transaction going forward.

Got it. Okay. And then maybe just 1 more You know, you had indicated natural gas content drove order growth for Industrial Solutions and Gearing. Wondering if you could talk about the opportunity for Broadwind to expand, you know, content per turbine or wallet share within the nat gas end markets. And then I guess, what you are seeing in terms of order size or project scope and how that is trending?

Yes. Thanks, Justin. This is Eric. Well, I will tell you that we are engaged with a couple different producers of gas turbines. Primarily the ones that are that are in the utility scale. There is we are we are engaged right now with 4 of the top 10 right now. Of course, we do have some concentration on a couple of those. As far as content, the content for industrial solutions is broad as we discussed before, We tend to support those installations on what is called not hot gas path, but surrounding the hot gas path. So we continue to invest in capabilities to grow share within that product set. So I think we are growing within our primary customer and another 3 on top of that. We are also growing content from industrial solutions kinda beyond what we what we do by taking more manufacturing on ourselves. With regard to gearing, we do production gearing. And we are looking at some other components within the natural gas turbine, but it will be limited primarily to that reduction gearing that we discussed before because that is primarily what these turbines need from us as far as precision machine gearing. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Justin.

Thanks, Justin.

Our next question comes from Eric Stine with Craig Hallum. Your line is now live.

Hi, Eric. Hi, Tom. Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So, obviously, you are you know, focusing here. You have been investing in gearing and industrial for some time. Curious, could you update us on you have got really strong backlog in both segments, update us on how you would expect that backlog to flow in both businesses, whether that has changed or you know, improved your ability to exit execute on that and then just what that implies over the next say, 12 to 18 months?

Sure. Sure.

Thanks, Eric. I think we are we are seeing is that we think that Q1 is probably the low watermark our revenues for both of those segments. We do expect these revenues to ramp up I do not think we can take our order run rate and extrapolate that to mean our what we are gonna book in terms of revenue because we are probably booking further into the future than we have in the past. But I think just suffice to say, I think we can expect a steady ratable growth for the balance of this year. And we are I should add that we are booking into 2027. And actually a little bit into 2028. Now that is depending on when the customers want product, not depending on our capability to deliver it when the customers want it. They are looking further out A couple of our customers are booked literally to the end of the decade, and so we have some advanced notice of some of their products. They want to secure capacity now instead of waiting.

So I do not wanna put words in your mouth, but you could, it sounds like you could execute on this backlog in both segments, you know, perhaps over the next 12 or so months, But in some cases, as you said, it has to do when the customers want that production, and that would potentially be the limiting factor. Correct. Now which also means there is more capacity. We have to fill in the interim. Yep. Yep. Okay. Got it. I mean, is it something where you are able to disclose kinda what your the percentage? And it sounds like it would be more skewed to industrial solutions when you are talking about booking further out, but are you able to kinda give a high level view of, say, what in that backlog, what is kinda earmarked for 2028 versus 2027 and 2020?

We could probably provide that on the next call We can provide some color there. At this point, I would say it is primarily 2027. Anything that is not in this year would be 2027. I think we are just starting to touch 2028. But we can add some color to that maybe on the next call for sure.

Yeah and you are correct. The you are correct. The customer that is pushing some or requesting some 2028 due dates delivery dates would be out of the Industrial Solutions segment, not so much out of hearing.

Yep. Okay. Got it. And then could you just talk a little bit about gearing? You mentioned some positive trends in oil and gas. And certainly, you know, you are hearing just I mean, it is a distant memory, but early in the year, gas prices or, I am sorry, oil prices, pretty depressed. And you are hearing people start to talk about that is really weighed on their oil and gas business and that it really has not picked up, you know, even with oil price appreciation given geopolitical factors. So maybe talk about that. I mean, is that something you that you are kind of concerned about or on the lookout for, or is there a reason that gearing would be a little bit insulated from what some others are seeing?

Well, gearing has been or oil and gas gearing, as you know, has been at a low for shoot. 6 or 7 quarters now. And it is because of a couple things. 1 is the customers are being more frugal with their capital Their rigs are a lot more are a lot more productive, so you do not need to add rigs to add to add output. However, what is going on now is, we have customers that are putting some of their old rigs back to work. And replacing some components within their existing rigs. So what we are seeing is what I would call quick turn domestic supply for our customers as they put some of their old equipment back to work. Got it. So, I mean, maybe is this a possibility that actually I mean, you are seeing some improvement there. As you said, low levels, but you are seeing some improvement there. Because customers are in fact a little bit cautious, but they are trying to get more out of their existing equipment rather than new capital. Right. that is correct. So the rig count, in the US remains down. The customers are not really putting new rigs back to work. there is been a couple over the last couple of weeks that have been redeployed. But where we are seeing the demand is what I would call aftermarket Meaning, the customers that have rigs working, or need to keep those rigs functioning, and they are replacing some of their wear their gearing wear parts with new components, not new rigs. Upgrading existing rigs.

Okay. Alright. that is helpful. Last 1 for me. Just I mean, pretty clear signaling that you that you aim to use a stronger balance sheet to add to your business. So I am curious. Maybe it is too early or maybe you just cannot talk about, you know, some specific thoughts. But just curious when you look at your platform, what are what are some areas where you potentially could fill in?

Well, of course, we have been pretty open about wanting to grow inorganically We are gonna use those 2 both those platforms gearing and industrial solutions as platforms to grow. We like precision machining with exposure to defense and aerospace. Already have some exposure to power generation if we can find something in power generation that would make sense, we would certainly like to bolt that on. We also like grid hardening. Think in terms of transmission distribution. A lot of the grid in The US is quite old. and in need of upgrade. And we think there is a position for us to take to support that upgrade. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Eric.

Thanks, Eric.

Our next question comes from Amit Dayal with H. C. Wainwright. Your line is now live.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. It looks like you have a pretty clear strategy in front of you with the new segments you are focused on. In that context, you know, what should we expect EBITDA margins to sort of, you know, come through maybe over the next 12 to 18 months as you sort of clean up the you know, the businesses you are exiting and focus on these new segments?

Sure. Yes, I will take that 1. Thanks, Amit. So would say within our gearing segment, we should expect margins to continue to improve For them, it is really it is really about volume and operating leverage. They have a big fixed cost structure. And the and the more revenue that we can produce out of that plant, the more profitable the overall plant is. So, we should see that continue to improve ratably. In terms of our biz, we should see our mix normalize. The last 2 quarters, I think we have we have got a very strong mix of products sold. And I we expect that to increase we expect that to normalize, I should say, over the balance of the year. Although, you know, revenue going up, but in terms of margins, I think you will see you will see that normalize a little bit in over the balance of the year.

Understood. And then, you know, we have spoken about this guys, you know, 1 on 1 in prior calls. But, you know, with the new fabrication now sort of out of the way, is there a potential rebranding coming for the company overall?

Yeah. The question really is we do not know yet. there is a certain of our divisions are already operating with different names, Bradford Gear, which we would not rebrand. But the overall company, we are thinking about it. I would I would stay tuned on that. The word Broadwind wind in it, but there is a whole lot more that Broadwind means to many people than just than just wind, a wind company. So stay tuned. We have thought about it. We are considering it, but no decision at this point.

Understood. And then just last 1. On the defense side, who are the customers on the defense side, Eric?

Some of them well, there is Oh, what kind of Brian, this just to get a sense of Yeah. What I would what I would say is some of them do not want us to us to disclose their name. But let's say there are parts for weapon systems. there is parts for the naval systems, and there is parts for helicopters.

Okay. Thank you. And that is all I have, guys. I will take my other questions offline.

Thank you.

Thank you, We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Eric Blashford. for closing comments.

Yes. Thanks, everyone, for listening today. We are on the move. Excited to execute our strategy. So stay tuned on that. We look forward to speaking with you again after Q2 to discuss our results. Have a great day, everyone.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And we thank you for your participation.