UL Solutions Inc. (ULS) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the UL Solutions First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this event is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce to you, Yijing Brentano. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Jenny Scanlon, our Chief Executive Officer; and Ryan Robinson, our Chief Financial Officer. During our discussion today, we will be referring to our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at ul.com. Our earnings release is also available on the website. I would like to remind everyone that on today's call, we may discuss forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may include, among other things, statements about UL Solutions results of operations and estimates and prospects that involve substantial risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ in a material way from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Please see the disclosure statement on Slide 2 of the earnings presentation as well as the disclaimers in our earnings release concerning forward-looking statements and the risk factors that are described in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and subsequent SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances at the date hereof, except as required by law. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures, a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix to the earnings presentation, which is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at ul.com. With that, I would like now to turn the call over to Jenny.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Let me start off by saying that we had an excellent quarter. We entered 2026 with strong momentum and the first quarter results confirm the trajectory we saw building throughout last year. We are executing with greater precision expanding our margin profile and positioning ourselves to grow with structural mega trends that are propelling our industry's long-term growth. Our resilient business model continues to serve us well as we innovate with our customers while they embrace rapid technological change. Of course, I also want to recognize the incredible team behind these results. executing consistently at this level across geographies and service lines with the backdrop of ever-changing conditions takes real skill and commitment. Our nearly 15,000 employees are both and I don't take that for granted. The decisions we have made to refine our portfolio, optimize our cost structure and allocate capital to growth areas are paying off. Before Ryan walks through the detailed financial results, I'll cover 3 areas: first, highlights of our first quarter performance; second, notable achievements in strategic development since we last reported, including the anticipated acquisition of Eurofins Electrical & Electronics or E&E business; and third, some perspective around the macro and geopolitical factors impacting our end markets. Let me start with the quarter. Our results were excellent. We delivered consolidated revenue growth of 7.5% as compared to the prior year period with organic revenue growth of 5.7%. Adjusted EBITDA grew over 22% and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 320 basis points. Adjusted diluted EPS increased 31.5% year-over-year. These results exceeded our expectations. Importantly, this performance was not the result of a single factor or a onetime tailwind. It reflects operating efficiency that is increasingly embedded in our business model. The benefits of disciplined expense management higher utilization across our engineering and lab teams and the accelerating impact of our previously announced restructuring program. We are moving quickly on durably improving our costs, and it is showing up in our results. Each of our 3 segments: industrial, consumer and risk in compliance software delivered strong organic growth and several hundred basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in the quarter. Now let me turn to our milestones achieved and strategic actions from the first quarter and in recent weeks. First, in our core business, we granted our first ever global safety certification for a robot operating in a public environment, certifying Simbe's Tally, an autonomous shelf-scanning robots deployed in retail stores. Tally earns certification to the UL 3300 standard for service robots operating in dynamic spaces where they encounter unpredictable human behavior. As robots expand in the grocery stores, airports, hotels and even homes at scale, we expect the need for rigorous independent certification will continue to grow, and we are a trusted leader in that space. We also issued the world's first certifications for AI-enabled products under the UL 3115 AI safety certification program awarded to Qcells for its data center energy management system and to Omniconn for its smart building platform. Both systems were independently evaluated for robustness, reliability, transparency and degree of human oversight as their operations become increasingly autonomous. As AI moves into critical infrastructure at scale, independent certification is essential to public trust, and we are positioned as a leader. Next, in keeping with our renewed focus on M&A. Last month, we announced a definitive agreement to acquire the Eurofins Electrical & Electronics business, including the MATLAB certification mark. This carve-out is a compelling strategic transaction that we expect to extend our capabilities in key geographies, including EMEA and Asia Pacific, and it will help drive continued growth in the consumer segment. by bringing together a global infrastructure of complementary electrical testing and certification services to meet customer needs. We expect it to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to applicable regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. The stand-alone business is expected to generate approximately $200 million in revenue for the full year 2026. The transaction is anticipated to be accretive to adjusted diluted EPS in the first full calendar year after closing, excluding intangible amortization and integration costs. We look forward to welcoming the E&E team when the time comes. These are highly skilled colleagues who share our mission of working for a safer world. And we are excited about what this combination means for our customers, and for the long-term growth of UL Solutions. Now let me offer some perspective on the macro environment and what we are seeing across our end markets. The global backdrop is more complex than it was a year ago. but our business is navigating it well. The leading demand drivers of our business remain durable, electrification of products, data center build-outs, advanced product development, fire safety and building construction, supply chain compliance software and the ongoing certification services that support the products carrying the UL mark. We do not view these as cyclical tailwinds. These are structural and they align directly with our capabilities. The characteristics that make us resilient remain strong, recurring revenue, global diversification, long-term customer relationships and a mission-critical role in the product development life cycle. Based on the strength of our first quarter and our visibility into end markets, we are raising our full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA margin outlook. Now I'll turn the call over to Ryan for a detailed review of our first quarter results.

Thank you, Jenny, and hello, everyone. I also want to thank all of our team members for delivering a strong start to 2026. The first quarter results reflect the work that has been done to improve our efficiency and earnings quality, and that work is increasingly visible in our numbers. I also want to highlight that Q1 2026 marks the first quarter in which we are reporting under our updated segment structure. As we noted previously, the primary change is the reallocation of certain activities formerly reported in software and advisory into industrial. The remaining software business is now reported as a segment called Risk and compliance software. Recast historical financial data is included in our earnings material and should provide a helpful view of the underlying performance and trajectory of each segment. Now let me walk through the quarter in detail. Consolidated revenue of $758 million was up 7.5% over the prior year quarter, including organic revenue growth of 5.7%. The organic revenue growth was led by our industrial segment, supported by solid contributions from consumer and risk and compliance software. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $197 million, an improvement of 22.4% year-over-year, outperforming our expectations. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.0%, up 320 basis points from Q1 2025. Adjusted net income increased 33.8% year-over-year, resulting in a 35.1% increase in adjusted diluted earnings per share. Expenses were well controlled in the quarter. The combination of higher revenues, improved productivity and higher utilization, prudent head count management and restructuring savings contributed meaningfully to our operating leverage. In Q1, revenue benefited by $13 million or 1.8% from FX, and this was offset by higher expenses from FX as local expenses were translated to USD. These changes reduced adjusted EBITDA margin by roughly 40 basis points. Now let me turn to our performance type segment, beginning with Industrial. Revenues in Industrial were $375 million, up 10.3% in total and 8.2% on an organic basis from the first quarter of 2025. Growth was led by ongoing certification services and certification testing with particular strength in energy and automation and materials. Adjusted EBITDA for Industrial increased 20.6% to $123 million in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved 280 basis points to 32.8%, driven by operating leverage from revenue growth and disciplined expense management. Turning to Consumer. Revenues were $318 million, up 4.6% in total and 3.0% on an organic basis from the first quarter of 2025. Growth in the first quarter was driven by certification testing and ongoing certification services with particular strength in consumer technology, appliances and HVAC. We noted when we first provided full year 2026 guidance, we expected Q1 to be the most challenging year-over-year comparison period for consumer, given the elevated demand in Q1 2025. In addition, as part of the restructuring program that we announced in November, we exited nonstrategic lines of business with lower profitability. These exits reduced consumer organic revenue growth by about 1% and Considering these dynamics, the underlying consumer growth trajectory remains solid. Consumer adjusted EBITDA increased 25.0% to $55 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved 280 basis points to 17.3%, driven by operating leverage, higher employee productivity and expense management, including the head count reductions from the restructuring point. Moving to our Risk and Compliance Software segment. Revenues were $65 million, an increase of 6.6% in total and 4.9% organically from the prior year period. This was led by increased demand for supply chain insights for the retail industry. Adjusted EBITDA for risk and compliance software was $19 million in the quarter, up 26.7% year-over-year with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 460 basis points to 29.2%. This improvement was primarily driven by operating leverage and higher employee productivity. I want to note that our risk and compliance software segment will look different beginning in Q2 as we completed the divestiture of our EHS software business on April 1. EHS software contributed revenue and profitability to Q1 results and its absence will affect year-over-year comparisons and margin profiles of this segment going forward. We will provide further context when we discuss our outlook. Turning to cash generation and the balance sheet. For the trailing 12 months ended March 31, 2026, we generated $665 million of cash from operating activities and $450 million of free cash flow. During the first quarter, capital expenditures were higher year-over-year, consistent with the commentary we provided on our Q4 2025 earnings call regarding the timing of certain investments from the back end of last year. Our balance sheet remains strong, supported by our investment-grade credit ratings, including Moody's recent upgrade of our rating to Baa2. This provides efficient access to capital to fund both organic investment and strategic M&A. This includes the financing of the E&E acquisition which we expect to fund through a combination of portfolio management activities, cash on hand and available capacity under our credit facility. Approximately 45% of the purchase price is anticipated to be funded through our portfolio management activities. This includes the sale of the EHS software business. In addition, just last week, we signed a definitive agreement to sell our shares in DQS Holdings GMBH for approximately EUR 105 million in cash. We expect the sales to close in the second half of 2026, subject to the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and satisfaction of closing conditions. The sequencing of our portfolio management actions reflects our deliberate strategy to sharpen our focus on TIC and risk and compliance software while redeploying capital into businesses that extend our core capabilities and global reach. Now turning to our 2026 full year outlook. While the macro environment is more complex today than when we set our original guidance, we have remained focused on our customers. Our execution has been strong, and our performance has been largely unaffected to date. These reasons, among others, have strengthened and allowed us to strengthen our adjusted EBITDA margin guidance. We continue to expect 2026 consolidated organic revenue growth to be in the mid-single-digit range versus full year 2025, anticipating contributions from all 3 segments. As a reminder, the EHS software business accounted for approximately $56 million of 2025 revenue and had margins roughly similar to our consolidated margins. The revenue impact of the EHS software divestiture which was pretty similar each quarter last year will be reflected in the acquisition and divestiture portion of our revenue change starting in Q2, and we do not expect it to affect our organic revenue growth rate. At this time, the forward FX forecast implied an approximately 1% tailwind on revenue growth for the year, and we would anticipate that to be offset with an expense increase from FX. Based on our strong performance in Q1 and the above considerations, we are strengthening our expectation for 2026 adjusted EBITDA margin to be approximately 27.0%, assuming current forward FX rates that I just mentioned. This margin outlook reflects progress on our continued improvement in productivity and restructuring efforts. Q1 was outstanding, and we expect to continue to improve margin. Our capital expenditure outlook for 2026 remains a range of approximately 7% to 8% of revenue. Our current tax rate expectation for the year is approximately 26%. We now expect our remaining expenses related to the previously announced restructuring program to be approximately $3 million as compared to the $5 million to $10 million previously communicated. We anticipate achieving the expense reduction targets we previously communicated. Overall, we are pleased with the start to the year and we believe that we are well positioned to deliver on our objectives while continuing to invest in long-term growth. Now let me turn the call back to Jenny for some closing remarks.

Thanks, Ryan. For this quarter's highlights some interesting things going on here at UL Solutions, I want to talk about some great events that have been taking place. UL Solutions continues to host data center infrastructure Summit, a series of in-person and virtual events that bring together key stakeholders to align on critical issues surrounding these globally proliferating facilities. Our events began last September at our Northbrook campus and has been a huge hit with our customers and other interested parties around the world. In the first quarter, we hosted our third event in Silicon Valley. This one alone drew more than 150 attendees from 41 different companies. These well-received events really underscore the importance of data center infrastructure and how our customers are looking to us for leadership and help in navigating the complex data center landscape. To close, we are proud of our Q1 results, and we remain dedicated to carrying out our focused strategy on behalf of our customers, our employees and our shareholders. With that, let's open the line for questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Andrew Nicholas of William Blair.

This is Daniel on for Andrew this morning. Just curious if you're seeing any notable changes in customer behavior yet, that's attributable to the conflict there on? And then should we think about that similar to how the tariff narrative has played out? Or is it more of a get pressure that can't be resolved by changing factory locations?

Thanks, Daniel. And we appreciate the question and certainly, in some areas of the world, but everybody is paying attention to. But for us, our demand drivers in the Middle East are a very small portion of our EMEA. And what we're seeing on customer behaviors continues to be what I would term a normal reaction to the uncertainty that they're facing, but no material effect on our business at this point. Of course, we're paying very close attention to the safety of our employees in the region.

The next question comes from Andrew...

Hold on, I think there was a second part to that question, Daniel? I just want to make sure we got it all.

Yes. It was just how that compares to the tariff impact and whether it would be sort of a similar reaction process from customers or wonder it's something that's a little less avoidable by restoring operations.

Yes. I think in this situation, again, with regard to comparing it to tariffs. As I always say, our customers just continue to make ongoing decisions that are the smart right answers for their business around where they want to conduct their research and development and where they want to manufacture and how their supply chains all fit together. So we're not, again, seeing anything unusual we're seeing just normal logical decision-making out of customers, and we're positioned to follow them wherever they go. But again, the Middle East for us is a very, very small portion of our customer base amount revenue.

The next question comes from Andrew Wittmann with Baird.

Yes. Great. So I guess the question that I wanted to ask about was about the AI adoption, the UL 3300 standard. I'm glad you brought it up, Jenny, because I think this should be an opportunity for the company. And I just -- just given that this is a new standard and kind of rolled out there and its importance, I just was hoping you could give us a little bit more context about where the standard sits relative to the innovation curve of the industry against competitive standards that might be being made other places. I want to get a sense of how well bought into the industries that are making robotics are into this standard versus other things, what may be industry organizations have signed up to use this one as a standard, just kind of the competitive positioning overall for this? And anything you can give us about your outlook in terms of what this means financially over the next couple of years would obviously be helpful as well.

Yes. Thanks, Andrew. It's a fun topic, and it's certainly an interesting topic. And actually, what it highlights, and I'm going to kick out for a second here, is the confluence of the UL 3300, which is robotics, and safety of robotics in areas where there's a lot of human interaction. And UL 3115, which is really the transparency and the bias and the use of AI when it gets embedded in products. And it's just a perfect example of the confluence of technologies and the complexity that our customers are looking to us to help them address and solve. So certainly, specifically on robotics, what we're seeing is service robotics, that sector has had steady growth. And it is becoming more complicated raising the bar for that safety and that reliability. So we are -- and in particular, our consumer sector, working very closely with a series of customers. This will continue to play out in that space. And it also brings together other service elements that UL provide such as our EMC wireless safety or cybersecurity safety and, of course, just embedded software and functional safety of these products. So it's always hard to point to one trend to say this is how that affects growth and opportunity. But certainly, it's the perfect example of the type of digitalization and megatrends that we've been pointing to.

The next question comes from [ Ryan Rivera ] of Bank of America.

I was wondering on the software business, post the EHS divestiture and the move of advisory into industrial. How should we think about the underlying run rate growth of the remaining compliance and risk business?

Yes, I would say, overall, we're excited about Risk and Compliance Software. We think the focus in being more transparent about the underlying economics of the software business will be helpful for people. the portion that we divested -- to be divested is slightly slower growing than the remainder of the portfolio. So all things to consider it should mix up a bit more. We don't give specific segment-level revenue guidance, but we would anticipate continued growth in that segment, both based on underlying factors, but our continued efforts to improve our go-to-market sales processes.

The next question comes from Seth Weber of BNP Paribas.

Ryan, I wanted to ask about the strength in the free cash flow in the quarter, unusually strong here. Anything that you'd call out attribute the strength to? And just maybe bigger picture, your view towards larger M&A, your appetite to do a bigger deal and kind of thoughts on leverage.

So first of all, we're pleased with our continued growth in cash flow from operations and free cash flow, I think it's more appropriate to look at it on a longer-term basis, and we quote some trailing 12-month figures. In the first quarter, we did have particularly strong cash flow from operations that was driven by our increases in net income margin, but also we had some working capital items like accounts payable growth that can occur in a short period of time like 1 quarter. So we're pleased with the continued growth in free cash flow, and particularly over a longer time period. So we're pleased to be able to fund the Eurofins E&E acquisition relatively easily from portfolio management activities, cash on hand and modest draw on our existing credit facility. We do continue to be very well capitalized and have capacity to do more. It is important for us to maintain a robust capital structure, and we're targeting continuing of metrics that are consistent with investment-grade credit ratings, but that leaves us a lot of flexibility and capacity to do other things.

Our next question comes from Seth (sic) [ Jason ] Haas of Wells Fargo.

This is Jun-Yi on for Jason Haas. You guys have previously talked about seeing more EBITDA margin improvement to occur in the second half of '26. Is that still the expectation? Or have you seen some of the restructuring initiative improvements been pulled forward into 1Q given the outperformance?

Yes. Increase margin comparisons as we progress in the year. And I would expect it to be relatively smooth for the remainder of the year. We continue to make progress on some of the restructuring initiatives that we discussed. We're not free of those. So we expect those to continue to provide some additional benefits.

Is there a follow-up?

Sorry. I've lost you there, the line had fade its way. The next question comes from George Tong of Goldman Sachs.

This is Anna on for George. My question is, we're actually hearing a lot about manufacturing capacity looks back to the U.S. in government budget increases for U.S. manufacturing, Along the trend, are you seeing any higher utilization rate of industrial TSC services driven by U.S. specific regulatory that your consumer [indiscernible]?

And the second half of your question cut out, but I think we got it. But can you just repeat after you said, are we seeing anything affecting industrial? And then...

Yes. So just with the onshoring trends also impact your consumer segment demand as well from the end market perspective?

Thank you. I think what we're seeing is continues to be consistent. We're not seeing a dramatic shift on reshoring to the United States, but certainly, there's movement. There's movement all over the world. The places where we're seeing the most movement is across Asia. And again, this is just -- we're able to track where our ongoing certification services are performed. So the areas that we're seeing the greatest increase, but remember, off of a low base are areas like Southeast Asia, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, as well as some miles increase off of a large base in the United States and a mild slope increase off of a large base in China. So as far as affecting our 2 businesses, we test wherever our customers need us to test, and we will perform ongoing certification services wherever they need it.

The next question comes from Stephanie Moore of Jefferies.

I wanted to touch on the margin performance in the quarter and just to make sure I'm understanding correctly. So obviously, very strong performance at the start of the year. And note, this is with 40 basis points of FX headwinds. I just want to confirm that the actual underlying performance was actually better. So as you think about just the margin expectations for -- as you progress through the year, maybe just talk about your level of confidence just given the momentum in the first quarter and really the decision to still raise our guidance and maybe opportunity for additional upside as the year progresses?

Thank you very much for the question, Stephanie. And I'll start with FX just mechanically and then go more deeply into the fundamentals. So yes, you're correct. The first quarter revenue increased by about 1.8% due to translation of non-U.S. revenue in the U.S. dollars, but also expenses that are non-U.S. dollar denominated translated in group. So it had an offsetting effect in our earnings, but because revenue went up, it reduced our reported adjusted EBITDA margin by about 40 basis points. The comment we made in outlook is be volatile, but the current rates would estimate a similar effect by about 1% and have that 1% offset. So some margin headwind as a result going forward. In regard to the underlying we're pleased with the performance in the quarter, and it's 1 quarter. So that allowed us to raise the range from 26.5% to 27.0%, and we're pleased with the progress, and we'll continue to monitor it through the year. We did have some changes. We're divesting that EHS software business that started April 1. We're having a more fulsome impact of some revenue that we're exiting. As a reminder, with our restructuring initiatives, we're stepping out of some service lines that collectively have about 1% revenue impact and we'll continue to monitor the business as we go forward. But we're pleased with the progress so far, and that collectively, 1 quarter in gave us confidence to at least raise the bottom end of the range.

And let me just add, I want to give a shout out to our 15,000 employees around the world. I'm really pleased with the ways in which they are embracing opportunities to improve productivity is the right use of tools and process improvements. And I'm also really pleased with the way that we've approached our cost discipline. So it put us in a position to move guidance upward.

The next question comes from Josh Chan of UBS.

Jenny, Ryan, congrats on the quarter. I was wondering about the growth rate in Q1. I guess, you were lapping some tougher compares in at least consumer. So Q1 was supposed to be the lowest growth quarter of the year? Do you think that will still be the case? So how are you thinking about sort of the performance in growth after the strong Q1?

Yes. There's a lot of nice things that we saw in growth in Q1. And as we look forward, we continue to believe that the trends that we've seen will be consistent. If you look at our industrial growth, as Ryan mentioned, our power and automation opportunities continue and that hits both ongoing certification and certification testing. In consumer, we were certainly pressured by excess of certain typically non-certification testing growth. But again, these were areas that were nonstrategic and lower margin for us. So that will continue to suppress consumer growth year-on-year as we exit those businesses. And then in Risk and Compliance Software, as Ryan indicated, the exit of EHS, while it was a nice margin contributor was on the lower growth side of Risk and Compliance Software. So we're not seeing really any -- as we look at our outlook, it's grounded in fundamentals, and we very confident in our mid-single-digit guidance here.

The next question comes from Arthur Truslove of Citi.

The first question I had was just around the the margin development. So essentially, you managed to grow revenue organically by 40 million organic expenses up by just also down by 3. I was just wondering if you could sort of explain how you've had so little cost pressure in there. So I guess, with that in mind, it'd be interesting to know what proportion of the organic revenue growth was pricing versus volume? And ultimately, how you managed to grow revenue so much with so little incremental cost pressure?

Yes, I'll start, and then I'll let Ryan comment on pricing and volume. But really, when you look at the approach of the messages that we've been delivering, we do see operating leverage off of a stable cost base and continue to have opportunities to better use capacity and have our teams focus on productivity based on the trends and processes that they continue to use and to improve. We did see the restructuring begin to flow through. So that has certainly been beneficial. And then we've been very focused on the value that we provide our customers and increasing the billable utilization in both of our lab teams as well as our engineers. And what's exciting about that is that's the technical leadership that our customers want. And so making sure that we're getting the value from that technical leadership is really important. So I would say those are the kind of the headlines on where we're focused on this margin expansion, and then Ryan can talk about pricing volume.

Yes. Thank you for the question, Arthur. So as we said, we report 4 revenue categories, the 2 that are most amenable to looking at price and volume, our certification testing and non-certification testing and other services. So together, those grew 7.1%. And in the first quarter, more of that growth was actually from volume than price. And we're encouraged by that. We believe volume growth reflects real underlying demand for new products. We're expanding in new geographies and there's healthy new activity regarding product introduction. Pricing remains constructive, and the cost of our services is just a small fraction of the total product development costs for manufacturers. We also had growth of 8.2% in ongoing certification services. And in that case, there were meaningful contributions from both price and volume.

And does that conclude your questions, Arthur? Ladies and gentlemen, with no further questions in the question queue. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now hand back to Jenny Scanlon for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We, as always, appreciate your support, and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's event. Thank you for attending, and you may now disconnect your lines.