Sotera Health Company (SHC) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the Sotera Health Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations, Jason Peterson. Jason, please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you. Welcome to Sotera Health's second quarter earnings call. Today's press release and earnings presentation are available on the Investors section of our website at soterahealth.com. This webcast is being recorded, and a replay will also be available on the Investors section of the Sotera Health website shortly after the call. Joining me today are Chief Executive Officer, Alton Shader; Chief Financial Officer, John Lyons; and Executive Chairman, Michael Petras. During today's call, some of our comments may be considered forward-looking statements. The matters addressed in these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied. Please refer to Sotera Health's SEC filings and the forward-looking statement slide at the beginning of the earnings presentation for a description of these risks and uncertainties. The company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Please note that during the discussion today, the company will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, tax rate applicable to adjusted net income, adjusted net income, adjusted EPS, net debt and net leverage ratio as well as constant currency comparisons. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures for all relevant historical periods may be found in the schedules attached to the company's press release and in the supplemental slides to the earnings presentation. The operator will be assisting with the Q&A portion of the call today. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. For further questions, feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations team. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Executive Chairman of the Board, Michael Petras.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our quarterly earnings call. As previously announced, Alton Shader assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer on May 26. While I continue to serve as Executive Chairman of the Board and remain actively engaged with the company, Alton is leading the company day-to-day. Today, we welcome Alton to his first Sotera Health earnings call. Having the privilege of working with Alton for the past 2 months plus, we are encouraged by the seamless transition. We have received positive responses from our team members, customers, investors and other stakeholders. We built a solid foundation and believe the future is very strong for this great company. Now I will turn the call over to Alton.

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I first want to thank Michael for his strong leadership as Sotera Health's CEO for the last 10 years. He has built a great company, and I look forward to working with him as our Executive Chairman. In addition, I want to thank him for his partnership throughout this transition. I'm honored to serve as Sotera Health's CEO and appreciate the warm welcome I have received from our team members, customers, and shareholders. I've spent the last 25 years working in health care and have always been inspired by the positive impact that health care product and service companies have on the lives of people around the world. And one would be hard-pressed to identify a company that is more essential to the delivery of life-saving health care products than Sotera Health. This criticality to the delivery of health care, the complementary nature of our businesses, the growth opportunities we have and the company's financial strength are a few of the reasons I was drawn to Sotera Health. Since joining the company, I've been impressed by the dedication of our teams, the trust our customers place in us and the industry-leading expertise that differentiates our business, especially in the highly regulated health care markets in which we operate. I look forward to working with our teams to build on these strengths, and to become even more focused on exceeding our customers' expectations every day. These strengths position us well to deliver consistent and reliable growth, and this was evident in our second quarter results, as we delivered 8% constant currency revenue growth, 8.7% constant currency adjusted EBITDA growth and expanded our adjusted EBITDA margins compared to the second quarter of last year. Our strong performance was broad-based across the portfolio. Sterigenics built on its strong momentum from Q1, delivering 7% constant currency revenue growth and more than 50 basis points of margin expansion versus Q2 2025. Nordion continued to execute well with 16.7% constant currency revenue growth and more than 160 basis points of segment income margin expansion. Nelson Labs exceeded expectations, delivering 5.4% constant currency revenue growth. One of the key ways Nelson Labs creates value for customers is by leveraging our technical expertise to solve complex problems. Customers regularly turn to Nelson Labs for support on time-sensitive and critical issues, and we saw that dynamic play out in the second quarter. Based on our strong first half performance, the resilience of our business model and our confidence in the remainder of the year, we are raising our full year 2026 outlook. We now expect constant currency revenue growth of 5.25% to 6.75%, and constant currency adjusted EBITDA growth of 5.75% to 7.25% compared to 2025. Before I turn the call over to Jon, I'd like to briefly highlight a few notable developments during the second quarter. In May, our former private equity sponsors completed their final secondary offering and as planned, no longer hold an ownership stake in Sotera Health. I would like to thank our former sponsors for their partnership and support over the years. They played an important role in helping to build the strong foundation we have today. I would also like to make you aware of a leadership transition at Nelson Labs. Joe Shrawder, President of Nelson Labs, recently retired after 6 years with the company. We are grateful to Joe for his many contributions to Nelson Labs and wish him the best in his retirement. We are pleased to have Riaz Bandali assume leadership of Nelson Labs following his successful tenure as President of Nordion. Riaz brings extensive experience leading laboratory services organizations, including oversight of global bioanalytical laboratory operations across North America and Europe. This makes him exceptionally well suited to lead Nelson Labs and execute on our growth priorities. And finally, we are progressing well in our search for Riaz's successor at Nordion. I'm proud of what our team has accomplished in the first half of the year and even more excited about the opportunities ahead as we continue to execute our strategy and serve as a trusted partner to our customers. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jon to review our second quarter financial results and updated full year outlook in greater detail.

Thank you, Alton. Before I review the quarter, I'd like to say how excited I am to be working alongside Alton as our new CEO. Since joining the company, he has quickly immersed himself in our business, our culture, and our customers. And I look forward to partnering with him as we continue building on our momentum. Turning to the quarter. I'll review our consolidated financial performance, provide highlights from each of our business segments and then discuss capital allocation, liquidity, and leverage. I will finish with additional details on our updated 2026 outlook. For the second quarter, on a consolidated total company basis, revenues increased by 9.2% to $321 million or 8% on a constant currency basis compared to Q2 2025. Net income on a GAAP basis for the quarter was $54 million or $0.19 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA improved by 10% to $166 million or 8.7% growth on a constant currency basis, while adjusted EBITDA margins expanded 36 basis points to 51.6%. Interest expense was $34 million in the quarter, an improvement of over $6 million compared to the prior year period, primarily driven by the benefits of the term loan repricing and debt reduction actions completed during the third quarter of 2025, as well as lower interest rates. Including the repricing completed this past quarter, we have lowered the borrowing costs on our $1.4 billion term loan by 100 basis points in less than a year. Adjusted EPS increased to $0.26 per diluted share, an improvement of 30% versus the prior year. Now let's take a closer look at the segment details. Sterigenics delivered strong second quarter 2026 revenue growth of 8.6% to $212 million or 7% on a constant currency basis. Favorable pricing of 4.3%, improved volume and mix of 2.7%, and foreign currency benefit of approximately 160 basis points drove revenue growth for the quarter. Segment income grew 9.6% to $118 million or 7.9% on a constant currency basis, while segment income margins improved 53 basis points versus the prior year quarter. Segment income and margin growth were driven by the strong top line growth, partially offset by inflation. Nordion's Q2 2026 revenue was up 15.8% to $49 million or 16.7% on a constant currency basis versus last year, primarily driven by increased volume mix of 13.6% due to the timing of Cobalt-60 harvest schedules, along with pricing benefits of 3.1%. As discussed on our last earnings call, we expected Nordion's first half 2026 revenue to represent approximately 40% to 45% of Nordion's full year revenue. First half revenue finished above that range, driven by certain shipments anticipated in the second half that occurred in the second quarter. Nordion segment income increased 19.2% to $28 million or 20.6% on a constant currency basis for the quarter, with segment income margins expanding 160 basis points to 56.9%, driven by higher volume mix, favorable pricing and foreign currency benefits, partially offset by inflation. In Nelson Labs, revenue for the quarter improved 6.3% to $61 million or 5.4% on a constant currency basis. Revenue growth was driven by favorable pricing of 2.8%, volume and mix growth of 2.6%, including the benefits Alton referenced earlier, as well as favorable foreign currency impact. Segment income totaled $20 million in the quarter, an increase of 0.6% or down 0.6% on a constant currency basis, with segment income margin of 32.4%. Segment income margin improved 438 basis points sequentially and is within our long-term range of low to mid-30s. Segment income margin declined versus the prior year quarter, primarily reflecting higher costs. Turning to the balance sheet, cash generation, and capital deployment. In the second quarter, we delivered positive operating cash flow of approximately $88 million. Capital expenditures for the quarter totaled $46 million, supporting Sterigenics' capacity expansion projects for future growth, EO facility upgrades, Nordion's Cobalt-60 development initiatives, and the clean room expansion at Nelson Labs. Our balance sheet continues to be well positioned to support our capital allocation priorities. Our net leverage ratio further improved to 3x for the second quarter, marking an important milestone as we reached our long-term target leverage range of 2 to 3x, and our liquidity remains strong. As Alton noted, we are increasing our 2026 outlook for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA constant currency growth. We now expect total company revenue to grow to a range of $1.236 billion to $1.254 billion, representing 5.25% to 6.75% constant currency growth and an estimated 100 basis point foreign currency benefit. Based on recent exchange rates, we expect foreign currency to be a slight headwind in the third quarter. We expect adjusted EBITDA to grow to a range of $634 million to $643 million, representing 5.75% to 7.25% constant currency growth and an estimated 100 basis point foreign currency benefit. Our 2026 outlook assumes total company pricing to be within our long-term 3% to 4% range. For 2026, we continue to expect Sterigenics to deliver mid- to high single-digit constant currency revenue growth year-over-year. We expect Nordion to grow constant currency revenue in the low to mid-single digits in 2026, with second half revenue split approximately evenly between Q3 and Q4. For Nelson Labs, we continue to expect full year 2026 constant currency revenue growth to be in the low single digits. Consistent with what we have previously communicated, we expect segment income margin in the low to mid-30% range. Moving on to other outlook items. Based on the current forward rate curve and the interest savings we realized from our most recent term loan repricing, we are improving our 2026 interest expense outlook to a range of $135 million to $142 million from our prior range of $135 million to $145 million. We are also improving our effective tax rate applicable to adjusted net income to a range of 27% to 28%. We continue to expect depreciation to increase in 2026, consistent with the increase we experienced in 2025. On a weighted average basis, we expect a fully diluted share count in the range of 289 million to 291 million shares. Taking these factors into account, we are improving our adjusted EPS outlook range to $0.95 to $1.01 per diluted share from our previous range of $0.93 to $1.01. With several key projects progressing as planned and half of the year now behind us, we expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $200 million to $225 million. We expect continued net leverage ratio improvement compared to 2025. Finally, as usual, our outlook does not assume any M&A activity. I'll now turn the call back over to Alton.

Thank you, Jon. We delivered a strong quarter, highlighted by solid execution across our businesses and an increase to our full year outlook. These results reflect the essential role we play in supporting health care around the world, the strong partnerships we have built with our customers, the resilience of our business, and the commitment of our teams. I'm excited about the opportunities ahead and confident in our ability to execute on our priorities and to create long-term value for our stakeholders. I would also like to thank our associates, customers, and shareholders for their continued support, and I look forward to meeting with many of our investors in the months ahead. At this point, operator, let's open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Sean Dodge with BMO.

This is Chris Charlton on for Sean. And welcome, Alton. Maybe just starting on Nelson Labs. It is a strong quarter here. Can you share some more detail on the drivers of the improvement in the quarter? Is this primarily just beginning to lap EAS headwinds? Or are there any other areas you're seeing strength? And then how much visibility do you have into this -- this continuing in the back half of the year?

Chris, Alton here. Thanks for the question. Yes, we're really pleased with the second quarter performance of Nelson Labs with the 5.4% constant currency growth. We got some good news from a few customers that were looking to work with Nelson, and that positively impacted our results here in Q2. And we continue to feel good about the underlying demand that we see in the marketplace and our role as a trusted partner with our customers. So overall, again, feel really good about the performance in Q2 and how the team really focused on serving their customers. And again, feel good about the environment going forward here in the second half of the year.

Okay. Great. And then on Sterigenics, can you share any more detail on how volumes have been trending across your categories, med tech, bioprocessing and commercial? I know you previously mentioned bioprocessing being a small but quickly growing component of and then commercial kind of being a more challenging backdrop. Is this still the case? Or have there been any changes to the dynamics across these categories?

Sure. So yes, so maybe a couple of comments on Sterigenics. So the 7% constant currency growth in the quarter, again, really pleased with that performance. Volume of 2.7%. Again, we feel really good about that. Just want to bring your attention and others' attention to the fact that we had a pretty tough comparable versus Q2 2025, where we grew 10% last year with a 6% volume, contribution there. So again, really, really strong performance from that team. Overall, we see a stable demand environment for our Sterigenics business. We obviously have a really broad spectrum of customers within that business, over 2,000 customers. Overall, we see strong growth across that full portfolio. Your point around bioprocessing, yes, a smaller part of our business, but we grew well in that business, and we continue to focus on that with our commercial teams.

The next question is from Evie Koslosky with Goldman Sachs.

And great work with you, Michael, over the last several years, and congrats, Alton, on the new role. I mean I think just to start, Alton, maybe walk us through some of your top priorities kind of within the first year as CEO. And then any thoughts on kind of driving additional synergies between the businesses or commercial strategy update?

Yes, absolutely. Hi, Evie, thanks for the question. Really priority 1 for me here in the short term is to ensure that I understand the business, get to know my team, understand our processes, and really determine our strengths and our areas of improvement. And key to the process of understanding the business is meeting and understanding and assessing our talent. So one of my most important jobs as the CEO is to ensure that we've got top talent in the organization, and this is an area that I've been working to understand. Next is really how we partner with our customers. So I need to understand how we partner with them, how they perceive us, and how we work across Sotera Health to really develop differentiated solutions. And I'll hit a bit here on that cross-business unit or One Sotera offering here in a second. Last thing I'll say before I get into that is I want to build on the customer-focused culture that we have here today. Real compliments to Michael, Jon, Jason, the rest of our leadership team on building a customer-first culture here. It's a real pleasure to be able to join the company like that, and I'm fortunate to be a part of this. But I want to ensure that every associate at Sotera Health understands how important their role is, and that they operate with a high level of urgency to deliver our solutions and delight our customers every single day. So that is one of my big focuses here is just customer focus, again, understanding we are a service business and we've got to delight our customers every single day. I think a real opportunity that we have is around our One Sotera offering or our cross business unit work. There's been a lot of really good work done over time here, but I think there's more opportunity. And the more I get into seeing the differentiated solutions we have, we're at our best when we're working together.

Great. That's super helpful. And then on Sterigenics volumes, I know you touched on it a bit, but that came in above our expectations. I guess what are you guys seeing from a competitive standpoint in that market? And then versus kind of broader end market trends? And maybe talk through some of the competitive wins with new customers and how those are trending?

Sure. So it's a competitive market. We haven't seen any significant difference in competition here in the last quarter, I think in the first half of the year overall. So that's the first point. Second, we spent a lot of time with our team as we put our guide together for the second half of the year, and that really informed the confidence that we have in our guide. So we do not see a slowdown in demand in Sterigenics. We recognize there have been some mixed data points out there with some of the providers. But we think in general, the indicators are pretty constructive. And we've seen a lot of med techs out there with really strong numbers here in Q2 and guides as well. So overall, competition, pretty similar. We continue to like our position in the market, and we're confident in our guide based on where we see the business heading.

The next question is from Luke Sergott with Barclays.

I just want to follow up on that. And you guys outperformed your other large peer. And digging a little bit on what differentiates you guys from a mix perspective, is it more weighted towards EO where you're catching -- that's a faster part of the market or more demand coming from those volumes that are going to EO sterilization technologies versus your gamma and X-ray? Just trying to understand there the puts and takes and like if you're not seeing -- like you said, like the volumes are okay, but we hear plenty of noise on the EPA headwinds potentially hitting the space and coming through. So is that one of the reasons why you feel like you'd be insulated because it's a more strategic part or like more necessary aspect of what you guys provide?

Yes. Thanks for the question. I will start with -- I'm only a couple of months in here, so I may not be able to hit on every single one of those points that you brought up, but I'll give you my perspective. One, I can't really comment on competition and what's going on with their business. But I will say, I know that we are higher indexed into the U.S. versus outside the U.S. compared to our primary competitor. That's one. But I think high level, again, when we get really deep with our teams, we're just not seeing that slowdown in demand. I think on the technology side, I've been doing everything I can to get out to as many facilities as possible, and I've been really impressed with what our teams do. And again, we've been making real progress on this cross-business unit work or bringing the full force of Sotera Health into developing solutions for our customers. I'd like to think that we're making a difference there and our customers are noticing. But give me a little bit more time as I get deeper into the role and longer in the seat, and I may have a more fulsome answer for you.

All right. Great. And then I guess from a margin perspective, particularly around Nelson, you guys talked about the higher cost step-up here in the quarter. Can you dig in there what drove those elevated costs? And then as you're bringing on the clean room expansions and doing that, how do we think about that through the second half or even into '27 as the capacity and utilization picks up in the new facilities or the new rooms?

Sure. Yes. Thanks for the question. So the first thing I'll mention is that we're really happy with the sequential margin increase of 438 basis points from Q1 to Q2 for Nelson Labs. So the team did a really nice job there executing in Q2. I'll also highlight the fact that we are still guiding our full year margin to low to the mid-30s range for Nelson. So we expect to stay within that range. The team is doing, again, a nice job of responding to customer requests. And as has been noted, we performed better than we expected here in Q2. Some of that growth was due to additional business that was earned in Q2, and our team really did their best to deliver on that in the quarter, and we benefited from that financially. As we go forward, again for the full year again, we continue to guide to that low to mid-30% range for margins.

The next question is from Ryan Halsted with RBC.

My first question is on Nelson Labs. Just was interested in any update on the validation testing pipeline and how you see that progressing in the back half of the year, and how we should think about kind of the cadence of that impacting versus the guide.

Yes. Thanks for the question, Ryan. So we feel good about the pipeline. We've got a number of opportunities that we're hopeful will contribute to additional growth to the business. That said, what we know and all the data that we are analyzing for Nelson Labs is informing our guide for the balance of the year.

Okay. And then you mentioned inflation as a headwind on margins. It would be helpful to hear what are the cost inflation that you're facing? Is it transitory? Are these related to some of the geopolitical events? Just any more color on that would be helpful.

Ryan, it's Jon. Thanks for the question on that. We're not seeing anything extraordinary in inflation. It's standard inflation coming through in labor cost increases, and in standard things on materials, nothing extraordinary. We really don't have any meaningful exposure from a knock-on effect of the Middle East, some very minor costs in Europe for utilities, things like that, but nothing that I would -- nothing significant there.

The next question is from Casey Woodring with JPMorgan.

Congrats on the new role, Alton. Looking forward to working with you. Maybe just a high-level one here. Looking at the guide, you raised the high end after the beat here. I think last year, around this time, after you beat, you only raised the low end. So I maybe just talk a little bit about the seemingly improved visibility you have here, then, moving forward, what's giving you enough confidence to raise at the high end there?

Yes, Casey, thanks for the question here. Maybe just a quick thought or 2 on just my philosophy around guidance. The first point I'll make is I'm very aligned with how Michael, John, Jason, have handled guidance in the past. And I think you'll expect a similar approach here. Our goal is to provide realistic guidance and to be able to provide information to our investors so they understand how we're thinking about the business and what's going on with the company. So that's the first piece. Second piece, obviously, we're really pleased with the performance of the company in Q2 and the first half of the year. And when we raised our guidance, there were a lot of factors we had to take into consideration. And a few of those are that we see a meaningful uptick in growth in Sterigenics in the second half of the year compared to the first half. So that's contemplated in our guidance. The other thing that's contemplated is, Jon mentioned in his opening remarks, the Nordion business, we guided 40% to 45% of full year revenue to hit in the first half. We actually achieved above the top end of our range. So some of the revenues we're expecting in the second half shifted into the second quarter based on customer requests. So we had to take that into consideration as well. So you pull that together, we look at what we see in our markets. We're, again, close to our customers, looking at our backlogs, et cetera. That's what informed our 25 basis point increase to both revenue and EBITDA guide here.

Got it. That's helpful. And maybe just if, Alton, you could spend a minute walking us through just the broader decision to build out the X-ray capacity that you've got coming online over the next couple of years. You've talked about it previously, or at least, you guys as a company have. Is that something customers are asking more of these days? Or are you kind of building out that new capacity, anticipating the market might move more towards X-ray? Just any thoughts around that? And then what would the margin implications be once you guys open these new facilities and more volume goes towards X-ray?

I'll start -- thanks for the question. I'll start, and then I'll hand it off to Jon on some of those, because, obviously, those decisions were made before I joined the organization. But a couple of things on our new X-ray facility. The good news is things are progressing very well. So we're on track. We've got a number of customers in validation, but we also have revenue starting to flow through that facility here starting in Q3. And that's one of the factors why we're comfortable with the uptick in growth from Sterigenics in the second half of the year compared to the first half. So overall, things are going very well in X-ray. I do -- I will say that, as a leading sterilization provider, we want to have all modalities, and we want to be able to offer that to our customers. But let me hand it off to Jon to get into some more specifics here.

Yes. Historically, the big thing around this was, if you look back a few years, our biggest competitor is also putting in a number of X-rays. As Alton said, we were looking at the opportunity and making sure we had a complete offering for our customers. And if you go back in time, we even contemplated doing more than that. So we thought it was at least important to put one in. It was a strategic decision by the Board. And it was one where, we normally, as you've heard from us before, we target 40% commitments from our customers, and that was one we made a little bit more of a bet on. And I'm happy to report, as Alton mentioned, the pipeline is filling. It's giving us optimism in the back half as we grow here. But again, it's one that we thought was a strategic decision and marker for us to put down to have that complete offering. That said, we are a world leader in Cobalt-60. We believe strongly in gamma sterilization, and that continues to be a critical part of our portfolio going forward, and X-ray is more of a complement as we look at it. On your margin question, the great thing about these facilities, you don't have a lot of incremental fixed cost coming in when you bring in, outside the depreciation, bring in these facilities. It's not hugely people intensive or material intensive. The big thing is electricity, so you can turn them on and off. So there is no notable margin impact. We've actually absorbed some costs already over the last 12 months that you wouldn't even see in the financials, really.

The next question is from Brendan Diggan with Citi.

Congrats on the quarter. I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the increased EBITDA guide. I understand that the Nelson Labs guide was kind of maintained in the low to mid-30% range. But I was wondering if you could touch on the Sterigenics and Nordion outlook, just given some of the shifts that kind of went on in Nordion and the increased outlook in Sterigenics.

Yes, sure. I'll start with Sterigenics. So again, were -- we put up a 7% constant currency growth in Q2, after 6.1% in Q1. In the second half of the year, we are expecting an uptick in growth compared to what we saw in the first half. And we've got pretty good confidence around that for a few reasons. One, I talked about overall demand seeming stable in the marketplace, but also more importantly, when we talk to our customers, look at our backlog pipeline, et cetera, it gives us confidence in the guide that we provided. In addition, there are a few tailwinds that we're expecting in the second half of '26 compared to the second half of '25. The first is we've got -- for our facility shutdown schedules, that is favorable in the back half of the year here in '26, again versus '25. Also, we've mentioned before a large customer who previously in-sourced their sterilization, they're now outsourcing to us. We will see that impact in the second half. And then also X-ray with our new facility with the additional revenues coming on there. All of those contribute to the guide that we have. And again, why we've got confidence in this pretty meaningful uptick in growth in Sterigenics in the second half. For Nordion, we are expecting again to -- as we guided previously, low to mid-single digits growth for the full year. And we expect Q3 and Q4 to have similar revenues. So you put that all together, and that is what informed us to create and provide the guide for the full year that we did.

Great. And then I was wondering if you could touch on the increased CapEx budget for this year. Just kind of what's behind the increase? And does this change at all the outlook for 2027 in terms of stepping down?

Yes. No, I can kick that off, and then we can hand it off to Jon if we want to get into a little bit more details there. But no, we do see a meaningful step-up in CapEx here in 2026. We've got a number of growth investments that are driving that. But as well, we've got the facility enhancements on the EO side that are driving that. We are going to be substantially complete with those facility enhancements by the end of 2026. There's going to be a little bit of work in '27, and a little bit of capital that will bleed into '27. But overall, those are the key drivers for '26.

Yes. And for '27, Brendan, we continue to expect a meaningful step down from '26 to '27 in CapEx spending. And overall, just as we think about our 3-year commitment that we had back at Investor Day, we're very much on track to deliver the free cash flow commitment that we had of $500 million to $600 million.

The next question is from Dave Windley with Jefferies.

I had a few -- some clarification, if I could. So you've called out kind of emphasized the positive impact in Nelson in 2Q and hammering home on the low 30s% margin. Should I interpret that these projects that you're referring to or clients that came in, in 2Q that those were, I'll call it, more transient projects in the quarter? Or were these clients that you're onboarding for more ongoing work? And was that activity in 2Q part of the enhancement of margin sequentially?

David, thanks for the question. I appreciate that. So the short answer is it's both for Nelson. So when you look at Q2, we did -- and you're aware, we outperformed our guide there, and that was because we did earn business within that quarter. Some of that business is going to be completed in that quarter, but some of that business is also going to continue throughout the year. Part of this -- part of how our business works is if we get a project, we have an opportunity to win more business in the future as well. So that's a key part of the Nelson story. And historically, they've done a nice job of that. So that -- I think that addresses the Nelson component there.

Yes. The big -- the only thing I would add is just on your sequential margin question. The step-up in revenue, of which that was a contributor really drove that. We've gotten great contribution margins that come with the business. So the step-up in revenue is really what helped drive the margin improvement sequentially, David.

Got it. Great. So I was just refreshing my memory. The other topic I had here is around pricing, and I'm thinking about this more broadly. I think longer-term history, you had talked about 3.5% to 5%. I think maybe towards the end of last year, you had revised that to 3% to 4%. You're still in that 3% to 4% range. I think one of the efforts or opportunities that you thought you had was pricing, I'll call it, pricing to value on the enhancements to EO and getting appropriately paid for that higher level of quality. Where does that stand? And is that -- I presume it's baked into the 3% to 4%, but how should I think about your progress against that?

Yes. Thanks for the question there. So obviously, we saw some strong pricing from Sterigenics in the quarter and previous quarters as well. And I view that as customers recognizing the value that we provide, but it's also a nice job by our commercial team securing those price increases. We expect similar type of pricing from Sterigenics here within the year. And we do expect the total company improvement of pricing to be consistent with the guide that we provided of 3% to 4%. We are making progress on getting the pricing that is tied to some of the investments that we're making for those EO enhancements, and that's on track.

Okay. And the last one quickly on the CapEx. I believe there were 2 greenfields historically discussed. One is this X-ray facility that comes online in the third quarter. And maybe I'm stale on this, but I thought the second one you had kind of put on the shelf pending discussions with clients and commitments around that. And I wondered -- I needed a reminder on the status on that second one.

Yes, definitely, David. Your recollection is correct as usual. We had put that on a brief pause. I'd call it a brief pause, and that was some of the reason why our CapEx last year stepped down so meaningfully from our initial guide. And also part of the reason why our CapEx came back this year is because we're full go on that project, making really good progress with the team there and expect that to be finished up towards the end of next year, early '28.

The next question is from Brett Fishbin with KeyBanc.

This is Will on for Brett. I just want to circle back on the XBU activities. I think you commented on it a little bit earlier, but could you just directionally quantify how meaningful those opportunities and efforts are becoming? And where do you see the greatest opportunity for additional penetration among those customers?

Yes. So thanks for that. So I do believe it is a meaningful opportunity. We obviously add a lot of value with our Sterigenics business unit, but also a lot of value with Nelson Labs, and the 2 are absolutely complementary. So at high level, that's one point. We have had an effort to ensure that our teams are working well together and that we are providing solutions to our customers that are differentiated just based on the high level of expertise that we have within each of those businesses. We do look at this as a meaningful opportunity for growth as we get into the planning period here. And also, it does absolutely impact our customer satisfaction. So when our customers are working seamlessly between Sotera Health business units, they're happier. And that's one of our key goals as a service provider to delight our customers every single day.

I appreciate the color on that. And then just one more. How is utilization as it stands today? Are there any particular geographies or modalities where you're seeing capacity becoming more constrained?

Yes. No, we're in a good position to support our customers right now with capacity available in most places. There are -- as we've talked before, EO in the U.S. continues to be a place, particularly in large chambers, where there's a little tighter capacity in places where it's more difficult. As you know, this is a geographic business and modality-based business. And so having the right modality in the right location is critical for the customer. And so those are things we work through, but that's the only thing that I'd really call out.

The next question is from Joseph Downing with Piper Sandler.

Congrats on the quarter. Just wanted to follow up quick on Sterigenics pricing. So as you head into the '27 contract conversations, is there anything that changes the ceiling on price here, whether that's customers potentially pushing back harder? It doesn't sound like that's an issue, but just wanted to confirm. And then are you -- anything with competitors getting more aggressive with -- to win volume or inflation boiling to the point where the pass-through argument might get a little tougher to make?

Yes. Thank you for the question. I appreciate that. So again, I don't see today and/or our team is not seeing today a material difference in competition. Again, the competition is always fierce in our market, and that's just something that we work through and we deal with every day. For pricing, we take an approach that we price for the value that we provide to our customers. And again, our commercial team has done a very nice job with that historically, and we expect them to continue to deliver on that in the future.

Great. I appreciate that. And then just one on capital deployment here. So you're now inside your leverage target, about $950 million of liquidity, nothing drawn on the revolver. Just curious kind of what's the priority stack from here? Is it building more cushion? Is it M&A in a specific area? Or does the buyback maybe into the conversation here at these levels?

Yes. No, thank you. I really appreciate that question. We haven't had a chance to talk about that yet. So this is obviously a really important time when it comes to capital allocation for our business. We are going to generate a significant amount of free cash flow over the course of the next few years. And as I look at our long-term growth and our long-term strategies, my primary goal is to be able to accelerate growth within this business. We got to become more essential to our customers. We've got to become easier to work with. We got to have best-in-class operations. And importantly, we've got to be able to effectively allocate our capital to maximize that growth. So we are heavily involved in that process right now. We're also kicking off our strategic planning process and working through some of our key strategic priorities and strategic initiatives. So I'm looking forward to sharing our priorities on capital allocation as we go forward. I'll note that where we are today with a focus on internal investment and M&A, particularly focused around on the sterilization side in Nelson Labs, I'm aligned with that. But we are getting deep into that right now, and I look forward to sharing more with you all once we have that more nailed down.

The next question is from Michael Polark with Wolfe Research.

Jumping around calls. So if you commented already on litigation, I apologize for this question. But could we get a brief litigation update? I see New Mexico, which was always one of the smaller items on EO, settled in early July. So I'm interested in just your comment on that. It seems like a small win. And then the next steps in Georgia, and California, what is on the calendar for later this year and what's still circled for '27?

Mike, it's Michael. So I'll take the questions on the litigation side. So as far as Georgia, we're going through the appellate process right now. Obviously, our view is the court's rejection of the plaintiff's general causation, there is a critical issue. common to all the cases, and we believe this underscores the lack of reliable scientific support. So I would say that is an overarching statement. We'd expect to hear something in spring/summer on the appellate process. We've got a team fully engaged, and we feel very good about where we sit relative to those rulings that have come out today, the case. And you mentioned New Mexico that was settled in July. That amount was not material to the company. And the settlement is fully and finally resolved all the claims asserted or that could have been asserted in the lawsuit. So we're happy to have that behind you. We felt all along that, that was not a legitimate claim, and we've been very consistent in that, and we're happy to be able to resolve that for an immaterial impact to the company. And then lastly, on the California litigation, we'll continue to work through the court hearings and procedures and processes and in different motions and rulings and everything else that comes along with this process at this point in time. We expect the trial to be in January or April 2027 at this point in time. That always could change based on how things play out. I don't think it will be any earlier than that. It could get pushed out slightly, but ultimately, that will be determined by the judge in this process.

For the follow-up, I want to fish on the large customer that's coming on in the second half in Sterigenics. Is this across your global network? Is it specific to a modality or geography? What you just -- and the mention of this customer used to in-source and now is outsourcing, are they shutting down internal capacity or they just had growth needs and for those growth needs, they're coming to you, but they're still keeping some level of service in-house. I'd welcome any color on this large customer.

Mike, thanks for the question. Yes, this is the one, the customer that we've been talking about is you can surmise this was an in-source/outsource shift related to EO in North America. When you think about what we've talked about historically, a meaningful customer that they're shutting down capacity and moving the business to us. So we're happy to support them and move this forward, but it's nothing new. This is the one we've been talking about for a while.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Alton for closing remarks.

Thanks, operator, and thank you all for joining us today. I continue to be really excited about Sotera's opportunities. And we, as a team, look forward to executing on the back half of the year, and I look forward to engaging with you all as we further develop our strategic priorities. So thanks again for joining. Hope you all have a good week. Take care. Thank you.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.