Christina Cristiano
Analyst · Bob Labick with CJS Securities
Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. I'd also like to express my appreciation to our associates around the world for their hard work this quarter. Starting on Slide 7. We're off to a good start to the year with sales of $388 million, an increase of approximately 17%. Organic sales increased approximately 6% year-over-year, driven by continued strong performance in SAT partially offset by expected softness in CPI hardware. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased approximately 80 basis points to 19%, driven by the SAT volume flow-through and the realization of operating synergies in authentication. We delivered adjusted EPS of $0.60, an increase of approximately 11%, which is on track with our full year guidance expectations. Finally, free cash flow reflects normal seasonality and timing of payments in the quarter. Based on our strong backlog and delivery schedule, we expect to accelerate free cash flow throughout the year and to achieve a full year conversion ratio between 90% and 110% on track with our guidance. Moving to our segments and starting with Security and Authentication Technologies on Slide 8. In the first quarter, we achieved sales growth of 51% year-over-year, including the contribution from the De La Rue Authentication acquisition that closed in May 2025. Organic sales grew by approximately 22% driven by continued robust demand in international currency and a favorable comparative to 2025 in U.S. currency. This quarter, we were excited to welcome the U.S. Treasurer, Brandon Beach to our currency facilities in Dalton, Massachusetts and Nashua, New Hampshire to learn more about the advanced technology and security measures that go into manufacturing the U.S. currency, and we look forward to the launch of the new $10 banknote, which is expected to be announced this year. We also ended the quarter with 3 new micro-optics wins in our international currency business and are on track to achieve our full year target of 10 to 15 new denominations. I'd like to congratulate our currency team on their continued success, including their work for Curaçao and Sint Maarten Central Bank, which was recently named the 2025 Bank Note of the Year by the International Bank Note Society. These notes, which were released last year are beautifully designed and feature our advanced micro-optics technology on both sides of each banknotes. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased approximately 600 basis points to 20% reflecting the benefit from higher U.S. currency volume and execution of synergies in the authentication business as planned. Looking forward, we expect to see continued margin expansion in SAT and are on track to end the year with an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 25%. Finally, SAT backlog continues to be robust and this, along with a healthy funnel of opportunities, gives us high confidence in achieving our full year sales target. Moving to Detection and Traceability Technologies on Slide 9. I'd like to highlight that our first quarter sales and adjusted EBITDA reflects CPI only, as the Antares Vision transaction closed at the end of the quarter. Additionally, as of March 31, we have consolidated Antares's balance sheet into Crane NXT and are now including its backlog in the DTT total as presented on this page. Sales declined approximately 4% year-over-year as mid-single-digit growth in CPI service was more than offset by expected lower hardware sales. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased approximately 160 basis points year-over-year, reflecting the lower hardware volume and product mix. We expect accelerating sales growth and margin accretion in CPI throughout the year, driven by productivity programs and disciplined cost management. These factors will drive an incremental improvement to CPI's expected full year adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 20 to 30 basis points. Segment backlog was $221 million, including approximately $100 million of Antares Vision backlog, which we expect to deliver in 2026. CPI backlog of approximately $120 million reflects sequential growth of approximately 8% with a book-to-bill ratio of approximately 1. Turning to our balance sheet on Slide 10. We ended the first quarter with net leverage of approximately 2.9x, including the financing for Antares Vision. Looking ahead, we anticipate deploying free cash flow toward debt reduction and expect to end 2026 with net leverage of approximately 2.3x. This low leverage and our substantial liquidity provide us with ample capacity to deploy capital to M&A in 2027, further building on our leadership position. Moving now to Slide 11. We are updating our 2026 guidance to reflect the inclusion of Antares Vision. For the full year, we now expect total sales growth of 15% to 17%. In SAT, we continue to expect high single-digit sales growth, driven by high single-digit growth in U.S. currency from a favorable mix of banknote demand and low single-digit growth in international currency over a very strong performance in 2025. In Crane Authentication, we expect mid-single-digit organic growth with total growth in the low 20s percent, including a full year contribution from De La Rue Authentication. In DTT, we expect sales growth in the low 20s percent, including Antares Vision. In CPI, we continue to expect sales to be flat year-over-year, reflecting mid-single-digit growth in service, offset by approximately flat to slightly down sales in hardware and vending. Antares Vision will add approximately $200 million to $210 million of revenue for 9 months in 2026, with Q4 being the highest quarter. We now expect our full year adjusted segment EBITDA margin to be approximately 27% including Antares Vision. We are maintaining our full year EPS guidance range of $4.10 to $4.40 as we expect the benefit of productivity initiatives in the core businesses and the EBITDA contribution from Antares to offset the expected incremental interest expense. Looking ahead to the second quarter, we expect mid-teens sales growth in the SAT segment, driven by timing of international currency shipments. In DTT, we expect mid-20s percent sales growth with CPI sales approximately flat to slightly down year-over-year and Antares Vision contributing approximately $60 million to $70 million of sales in the quarter. Now I'll turn it back to Aaron to provide closing remarks.