Robert Domodossola
Analyst · JPMorgan
Thanks, Graham. Turning to Slide 9. Husky saw a return to top line growth and stabilizing profitability, delivering adjusted net sales of $368.9 million, up 0.5% from prior year. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $88.8 million, down 0.9% from prior year and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins of 24.1%, down approximately 30 basis points from prior year. Our performance was in line with expectations as we navigated the recovering demand environment and saw a return to growth in system sales as well as high single-digit growth in our service business. We saw improving order demand as total orders increased by 7% year-over-year and 4% sequentially, aftermarket tooling orders up 19% year-over-year and spare parts orders up 17% year-over-year. Year-to-date through the end of the third quarter, systems orders are now up 4%. Aftermarket tooling orders are up 9%, spare parts orders are up 10%. And this momentum in orders continued through October as we saw total orders up 21% year-over-year and aftermarket orders up 8% year-over-year. While these orders take time to translate into revenue, these trends, coupled with our expanding backlog and near-term pipeline give us confidence in delivering the fourth quarter and accelerating into 2027. As sales grew sequentially, we expanded margins by approximately 500 basis points quarter-over-quarter through improving labor and fixed cost absorption as well as from partially realization of ongoing cost actions. We expect these trends to continue in the seasonally strongest fourth quarter, consistent with historic performance. As leveraging -- as operating leverage from higher revenues drives improved margins, further enhanced by our in-flight cost and productivity initiatives. We are encouraged by these early operational efficiency gains and recognize there remains significant opportunity to improve and sustain higher profitability through the ongoing deployment of ROS. Our culture and operational transformation is fundamentally changing the way we operate every single day. Even while navigating a turbulent macro environment, ROS provides the structure, the discipline and the visibility needed to drive continuous improvement across our businesses. We start each morning with an improved cross-functional S&OP process to understand real-time demand trends, improve factory loading, reduce lead time and waste and increase production outputs. We have redesigned our sales force to strengthen commercial effectiveness, and we're beginning to see the signs of new capabilities translate into accelerating pipeline and orders. We have also enhanced our global coordination across factories and are deploying a blitz of Kaizens to improve unit cost production and shorten lead times. There is a significant runway for ROS deployment, but it has already driven measurable improvements in growth, operations and financial performance. We remain firmly committed to making strategic investments in innovation and product development to ensure our solutions remain best-in-class, helping our customers maximize output, improve productivity and reduce the total cost of ownership. I also want to highlight the recent launches and strong customer reception to our HyCAP PRO beverage closure platform and our HyCAP 4.0 next-generation tooling platform. These products are specifically engineered to help beverage closure manufacturers achieve ultra lightweight tethered and high-performance designs with improved precision, durability and efficiency. It is yet another example of Husky's committed to customer-centric innovation that delivers industry-leading efficiencies and a lower total cost of ownership than competitors. Now going to Slide 10, I want to provide additional context for our financial performance. As Tom mentioned, while demand is improving, we have been slow in executing the cost actions identified early in the year. We are refocused and executing on them now to prepare for 2027. These actions focus on optimizing labor utilization, reducing discretionary spend and driving greater fixed cost discipline across the organization. This is an intentional strategy behind these initiatives. We are focused on enhancing efficiency and profitability while preserving our ability to respond quickly when demand fully recovers. This balance is critical as we want to ensure that Husky remains positioned to capture growth opportunities as market conditions improve. We expect margins to continue to improve sequentially in the fourth quarter. Margin expansion is expected to be directly -- driven directly by improved fixed costs, ongoing cost-saving initiatives and operating improvements from ROS, partially offset by necessary growth investments and product mix. We continue to closely monitor the evolving tariff policy changes, but do not expect tariffs to have a material impact to our financial performance. In summary, while market conditions remain dynamic, we believe Husky remains well positioned to deliver in the fourth quarter and accelerate into the first quarter of 2027. We have improved visibility on pipeline and orders and have already booked significantly more systems into our production queue for the first quarter than last year. In addition, we continue to make disciplined investments in R&D and innovation with several new products and technology advancements progressing through our pipeline. These investments reinforce our technology leadership and position us to capture additional growth opportunities as customer demand recovers. Now turning to Slide 11. Let me provide a more granular view on the commercial momentum that gives us confidence and visibility for delivery in 2027. As we have mentioned, the total pipeline is building sequentially, and we also have seen strength in our high confidence near-term pipeline, particularly in systems for the fourth quarter. For the third quarter orders, not only were we up 7% year-over-year, but our ending October was up 21% year-over-year, demonstrating strengthening demand from our customers. Our backlog was up 5% at quarter end and sequentially, and we expect it to be approximately double-digit plus to the end of the year. To reiterate the importance of our aftermarket business, aftermarket orders were up 13% year-over-year through the third quarter and up 8% year-over-year in October. With a growing installed base and bottlers increasingly pursuing lightweighting, this supports reoccurring aftermarket demand for Husky over time. Moving to Slide 12. It is worth acknowledging the second half seasonality inherent to Husky. Across both adjusted net sales and adjusted EBITDA, you can see the consistency in the higher second half weighing over the past 3 years. While we lower our full year guidance for adjusted EBITDA due to margin headwinds, we expect our second half performance to be -- to fall in line with historical seasonality. Going to Slide 13, I want to provide some additional context on how Husky's forecast evolved for this period of uncertainty. While our end market demand is improving and the second half sales increase is materializing as forecasted, many primary drivers of EBITDA guidance adjustments are delayed in executing identified cost reduction initiatives and unfavorable mix. When we provided our outlook in May, we had planned a contribution -- a combination of furloughs, direct and indirect headcount reductions and indirect cost expenses reductions. While we were successful implementing 2 rounds of furloughs and also reducing some indirect spend, we have been slow to deliver fully on planned cost actions. These delays, net of EBITDA contribution from incremental sales represents approximately $20 million of EBITDA headwind. We are focused on addressing this to position the company well for 2027. We have instituted a more rigorous S&OP process to better align direct labor with demand while improving workforce visibility and variability in our factories. Additionally, the planned indirect headcount reductions are expected to be complete by year-end with a full benefit flowing through in 2027. Separately, unfavorable machine and auxiliary mix is weighing on margins in the near term. However, system sales expand our installed base and create opportunities for higher aftermarket revenue over time. Overall, while the EBITDA shortfall is disappointing, improvement is now more in our control with demand strengthening, and we have identified the levers to drive that improvement, positioning the business for stronger execution and for better profitability. With that, I will hand it back to Dave.