MTRN Q3 2026 earnings call transcript, November 4, 2026

Greetings. Welcome to the Materion Third Quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Kyle Kelleher, Director, Investor Relations and Corporate FP&A. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for joining us on our third quarter, 2026 earnings conference call. This is Kyle Kelleher, Director, Investor Relations and Corporate FP&A. Before we begin our remarks this morning, I would like to point out that we have posted materials on the company's website that we will reference as part of today's review of the quarterly results. You can also access the materials through the download feature on the earnings call webcast link. With me today is Jugal Vijay Varghia, President and Chief Executive Officer.

and Shelly Chadwick, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our format for today's conference call is as follows. Jugal will provide opening comments on the quarter. Following Jugal, Shelly will review the detailed financial results in addition to discussing expectations for the remainder of 2026. We will then open up the call for questions. Let me remind investors that any forward-looking statements made in the presentation, including those in the Outlook section and during the question and answer portion, are based on current expectations. Thank you very much. The company's actual performance may materially differ from that contemplated by the forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors. Those factors are listed in the earnings press release we issued this morning. Additionally, comments regarding earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, depletion, and amortization, net income, and earnings per share reflect the adjusted gap numbers shown in attachments 4 through 9 in this morning's press release. The adjustments are made in the prior year period for comparative purposes and removed special items, non-cash charges, and certain discrete income tax adjustments. And now, I'll turn over to Carl to Jougal for his comments.

Thanks, Kyle, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be with you today to discuss our third quarter performance and the outstanding momentum we continue to build across Materion. Q3 was an exceptional quarter and a powerful reflection of the strength of our advanced materials portfolio, the attractiveness of our energy. market exposure and the disciplined execution of our global team. Demand continued to accelerate across many of our key markets and our business delivered outstanding performance resulting in record sales, earnings, incoming orders and backlog. These results underscore both the resilience of our business model and our ability to capitalize on favorable market dynamics. We delivered record value added sales of a product. me $314 million and highest ever adjusted earnings per share of $1.93, marking another milestone quarter for the company. Each business segment achieved double digit year over year growth in both sales and earnings, underscoring the strength of our strategy and execution. Importantly, these results were not driven by any single business, customer or end market. Growth was widespread. Across the organization and that breath gives us considerable confidence in the sustainability of our momentum. Just as importantly, we expanded margins for the fourth consecutive quarter on a year over year basis and continue to make meaningful progress toward our midterm adjusted EBITDA margin target of 23%. These results highlight the inherent leverage in our business model and reflect the benefits of our ongoing focus on operating.

...excellence, portfolio optimization, value based pricing, and disciplined execution across the organization. As a result, we are translating strong demand into profitable growth and increasing shareholder value. The semiconductor market remained a significant source of growth in the quarter, driving the highest quarterly sales in the company's history. Customers continue to invest in next generation semiconductor technology. While our strategic growth initiatives generated additional momentum across the business. We delivered our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, reinforcing our strong comparative position in the semiconductor value chain. Aerospace and defense was another standout performer during the quarter, with sales increasing more than 40% year-over-year. Strength was broad-based across defense, commercial aerospace, and space applications. Reflecting both favorable market conditions and the value we bring to our customers' most demanding programs. Customer engagement remains robust. Our opportunity pipeline continues to expand, and we are securing positions on an increasing number of mission-critical programs and platforms with strong long-term demand prospects. These trends reinforce our confidence that aerospace and defense will remain a significant driver of growth for Materion in the years ahead.

Another end market demonstrating significant momentum for us is telecom and data center. Sales increased more than 70% year over year, delivering our strongest quarterly performance since 2019. Demand continues to be fueled by ongoing investments in data center infrastructure, high-speed connectivity, and network expansion to support accelerating global data consumption. We believe these secular trends position us as well for continued growth as customers and investors support rapidly expanding data and connectivity needs. Perhaps most encouraging is the broad-based nature of the demand we are experiencing across our portfolio. Strong contributions from semiconductor, aerospace and defense, telecom and data center, industrial, and energy applications demonstrate the strength and diversity of our business, rather than relying on any single market or growth driver. We are benefiting from multiple end markets that are positioned favorably and supported by long-term secular trends. This breadth reinforces the value of our portfolio strategy and gives us confidence in our ability to generate sustainable growth and create value across varying market conditions. Over the past several years, we have transformed Materion into a more focused, higher-performing advanced materials company aligned with attractive secular growth trends. The performance we are delivering today reflects the success of that transformation.

We are capturing larger opportunities, expanding our presence across multiple growth markets, improving profitability, generating strong cash flow, and further strengthening our competitive standing. Most importantly, an increasing share of our business is concentrated in highly differentiated applications where our materials, technologies, and technical expertise enable... ...customer outcomes and create lasting competitive advantages. This evolution has strengthened the quality of our portfolio and positioned Materion to deliver sustainable growth. As strong as our quarterly results were, what excites me most is the momentum we are seeing beneath the surface. We exited the quarter with the highest level of incoming orders and the largest backlog in Materion's history. Year-to-date incoming orders reached a new record, and backlog continued to expand meaningfully, providing strong visibility into future demand. More importantly, this strength is broad-based. This momentum is being fueled by expanding customer technology roadmaps, growing participation in long-duration programs, new business wins, and rising demand for the advanced material solutions that enable our customers' most critical applications. Together, these indicators provide confidence that the growth opportunities ahead of us remain sustainable. Looking ahead, we are entering the fourth quarter with unprecedented momentum. Record backlogs, record incoming orders, continued strength across our end markets, and strong operating performance provide us with confidence as we move into the final quarter of the year. Our optimism is not based solely on the results we have achieved to date. It is reinforced by what we see on the horizon, expanding

customer opportunities, strong demand indicators, and direct feedback from customers that points to continued investment in the markets we serve. Based on the momentum we are seeing across the business, we expect a meaningful acceleration in sales during the fourth quarter, resulting in high-teens top-line growth for the full year. Reflecting the strength, we are raising our full-year adjusted earnings outlook to a range of $710 to $740 per share. At the midpoint, this represents approximately 33% growth over the prior year, and it reflects both our strong performance year-to-date and our expectations for continued momentum as we conclude what is shaping up to be a record year for Materion. I would like to thank our employees around the world for their dedication, innovation, and commitment to excellence. Their unwavering focus on safety, quality, operational performance, and customer service continues to be the foundation of Materion. Success. I also want to thank our customers and shareholders for their continued trust, confidence, and partnership. With that, I'll turn the call over to Shelly to review the financial details.

Thanks, Jubal, and good morning. During my comments, I will reference the slides posted on our website this morning, starting on slide 10. In the third quarter, value-added sales, which exclude the impact of pass-through precious metal costs, were a record 313.7. million, up 19% from the prior year. Adjusted earnings per share were a record $1.93, up 37% from prior year. As Dougal outlined, the strength in the quarter was seen across the company. I'll focus my comments on how that growth translated into higher earnings, margin expansion, and strong cash generation. Turning to slide 11, adjusted EBITDA was 70.7 million, or 22.5% of value-added sales, an increase of 27% year-over-year, with 150 basis points of margin expansion. This marks our fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin expansion and represents continued progress toward our 23% midterm adjusted EBITDA margin target. The increase in the quarter was driven by higher volume and favorable price mix, demonstrating strong incremental profitability on the quarter's sales growth. Moving to slide 12, let me review third quarter results by business segment. Starting with performance materials, value-added sales were 100%. 178.7 million in the quarter, up 14% year-over-year. This increase was driven primarily by market growth and new business wins across aerospace and defense, telecom and data center, and industrial. Adjusted EBITDA was 42.6 million, or 23.8% of value-added sales, up 12% compared to the prior year period. The year-over-year increase was driven by higher volume and pricing, partially offset by unfavorable mix.

Looking out to the fourth quarter, we expect to finish the year strong, with a meaningful step-up in sales, driven by large incoming defense orders, and continued order acceleration across other end markets. Turning to slide 13, electronic materials delivered another outstanding quarter. Value-added sales were 103.4 million, up 30% year-over-year, led by continued momentum across the semiconductor market. New business wins and accelerating broad-based demand are fueling the strong. growth. Adjusted EBITDA was a record 33.2 million, or 32.1% of value-added sales, up 54% year-over-year, with 500 basis points of margin expansion. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin expansion in EM. These results reflect higher volume and favorable price mix, together with contributions from new business and the benefit of the cost optimization work completed over the past several years. Looking at the fourth quarter, we expect to see strong top and bottom-line results, driven by continued semiconductor outperformance and contributions from new business. On slide 14, precision optics value-added sales were $31.6 million, up 17% year-over-year, driven by strength across most end markets, coupled with new business. This marks the segment's sixth consecutive quarter of top-line improvement and the highest quarterly sales since early 2021. Thank you so much for joining us. Adjusted EBITDA was 5.5 million, or 17.4% of VA sales, up 72% year-over-year, with 560 basis points of margin expansion.

This increase was driven by higher volume and strong price mix and signifies the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year improvement. New program wins and operational improvements are translating into sustained, profitable growth. Looking into the fourth quarter, we expect continuous top and bottom line improvement to close out an impressive step forward in the transformation of precision optics. Moving now to cash, debt, and liquidity on slide 15, we ended the quarter with a net debt position of approximately $382 million and $276 million of available capacity on our existing credit facility with leverage at one and a half times the low end of our targeted range. We generated $46 million of free cash flow in the quarter. And year-to-date free cash flow to $85 million with conversion of approximately 120% in the quarter and 88% year-to-date. Looking ahead, we expect to deliver another strong cash performance in the fourth quarter, supported by higher earnings and continued working capital improvements. Lastly, turning to slide 16, I'll cover our 2026 outlook. Our performance through the first nine months has positioned us to deliver a record year. Strong year-to-date results. With record backlog and continued order rate momentum give us increased confidence as we close out the year. We now anticipate high teens top line growth for 2026 and are raising our adjusted EPS outlook to $7.10 to $7.40 compared to our prior guidance range of $6.80 to $7.20. At the midpoint, this represents approximately 33% growth year over year. This is our third outlook increase of the year,

reflecting broad-based demand, strong operational execution, and earnings contribution from new business wins. Taken together, our record sales and earnings, sustained margin expansion, strong cash generation, and strengthening balance sheet leave us well-positioned to continue investing in growth while creating long-term value for shareholders.

This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the line for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will...

We'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. First question comes from Daniel Moore with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

semiconductor market, as you know, we delivered record results here in the third quarter, but we've had growing results for the last six quarters. In aerospace and defense, all three segments of our aerospace and defense, so we talk about commercial aerospace, we talk about space, and we talk about defense, all three continue to grow, and they grew in the third quarter. In our industrial business, PMI index continues to be north of 50, our year to day growth. Growth is 11%. In Q3, we grow 8%. Our brilliant nickel business, which is part of the industrial business, continues to be strong and continues to support all the build activities and infrastructure improvements that are happening in the U.S. Our telecom and data center business continues to do well, highest quarter of sales since 2019, and so on. So I think what we want to highlight here is that our growth is not based on one particular vertical. It's really based on many, many things that are going on in the marketplace, but then also the new business activities that we have going on in each of our markets. So we're quite excited about where we are. Our order rate, you highlighted it, is about 25% higher since the beginning of the year on a year-over-year basis. Our backlog growing again. And this is sort of a continuing theme that we have given quarter in, quarter out, but our backlog continues to increase. And now, for up to, you know, approximately 35% increase on a year-over-year basis, you know, for our backlog. Again, that goes across our end markets. So, certainly the AI side, the data center side is important. The high-performance computing is important. In the semiconductor market, it's also broad-based. Whether it's data centers, whether it's memory, whether it's logic, communication, et cetera, it's really a broad-based growth that we have in each of the markets as well as across the company.

So, we're excited about kind of where things go. Ended up in Q3. We're really excited about where things are positioned for Q4, as you've noted with, you know, as we've noted with our guide change that we've done. And hopefully, these things will then, you know, continue as we go on over the next year to more years. Really helpful. Maybe just talk to your capacity as you look across the businesses, you know, looking to 27 and beyond, given the strength that you're seeing, are there areas that might be looking to increase investment or capacity, you know, given those strong tailwinds? Yeah, absolutely. We, you know, as you know, we've made good investments over the last several years. We've made a lot of organic investments. Capacity has been an important part of that. Our operational excellence in general has been an important part of that. And we will continue to do that across the plans where we think we need capacity. But, you know, our teams have done a great job of driving efficiency, driving higher productivity. Getting more out from our facilities with the capacity that we have. But like you said, at the same time, we're adding capacity. We announced, you will recall, an investment on $65 million investment on the defense side, where we're putting that in. That should be in by the end of next year. So that capacity is going to certainly help us. We've made significant capacity investments over the last two, three years, actually, in our high performance computing. So channel and business you highlighted.

And, and, and, and, and, and. And so that I think gives us more opportunities. So we are making capacity improvements and investments. We'll continue to do that. But, but I think our teams have done a really nice job of driving more output with, with the capacity that we, with the equipment and plants that we have and making the incremental investments, you know, as needed basis. Very good. Last one. I'll jump out. Nice. Very nice. I would say rebound, but, but uptick. in adjusted EBITDA margins up to 22 and a half percent already approaching that near term target. So careful what you wish for, but, you know, looking into 27 and beyond, just talk to the sustainability of those margins and, you know, how much upside might there be as you look at over the next few years? I know we've got that near term target. Just, you know, talk to the kind of operating leverage from here. If we continue to see healthy organic growth, as we've seen. Thank you again for the color. Yeah. Well, you'll recall, Dan, you know, our midterm target was 20% just a couple years back. And we wanted to make sure that we could deliver that on a more sustainable basis, get a few quarters under our belt. Once we did that, we were able to go in and say, okay, we're going to raise that, you know, to a 23%. And now we've been delivering consistently north of 20%. And we are approaching, as you said, you know, 23%. We want to make sure that we can get there and deliver it for a few quarters.

And. I think as we can do that, then we'll sit back and look at what, you know, more could be possible. But right now, I think our focus is on making sure that we are delivering 23% on a consistent quarterly basis. Our teams are fully engaged on that and we'll continue to continue to drive towards that. Yeah. And Jill, just to add on a little bit to that, you know, when we set that 23% target, we talked about the fact that we saw the path. We knew what it would take to get there and why we thought 23 was, you know, the right number for us to talk. I think our businesses are, you know, are performing ahead of our expectations, right? So, maybe we're getting there a little bit sooner. We're not ready to claim, you know, we're here at 23, but we're certainly seeing that momentum taking us forward a little bit faster than what we saw when we set that target. All right, really helpful. I'll jump back with any follow-ups. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question from Samuel McKinney with KeyBank. Please proceed with your question.

Sam, you there? Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you now. Oh, okay. Sorry. Consumer electronic sales, they didn't change much sequentially. Can you provide us with the latest on the path back to normalized volumes for the precision clad and any more details behind the timing that you cited in the slide? Yeah, so on PMI, you know, we indicated, I think, and I would say the same, that is that we are at production levels that were there prior to the quality issue in Q4 that we had. So we continue to make good progress. And I think we'll continue to be at those levels, you know, here as we enter Q4 as well. So it really, the rest of the consumer electronics is a smaller portion of our business. You know, it fluctuates just based on timing and things quarter to quarter. So I wouldn't really put too much focus, you know, on the rest of the business. But we've made great progress on the PMI front, and we are at the production levels or slightly even better than what we were prior to the quality issue taking place in Q4. Okay. And then certainly your goal is to outpace the general end markets, but the semiconductor value-added sales blew that out. It increased 20% sequentially. You just talk about how you view sustainability of that quarterly value-added sales figure safely above $90 million. And what in particular drove such massive growth this quarter? Well, I mean, part of the semiconductor chain, as you can imagine, a little bit of timing.

But I think in general, you know, our teams have done a fantastic job of not only, as you said, growing with the market, but actually gaining share and winning new business. And certainly value-based pricing is a part of that as well. So, you know, we typically compare ourselves to wafer starts. Wafer starts are projected to be somewhere in the 11-ish percent, you know, on a year-over-year basis. Our year-to-date sales are roughly north of 25 percent, so maybe around 26 percent on semiconductor. The quarter was at 40. We continue to have great momentum in high-performance computing and making sure that our products are being used on the smaller node, high bandwidth memory, lower or smaller node chips. We continue to have a great pursuit in data storage, making sure we're gaining share and becoming a... Larger part on the data storage side and a number of other, I would say, growth initiatives. When you look at our ALD portfolio, we've talked about the atomic layer deposition portfolio, a strong growth in that business and continues to do well. So it is really, I would say, a broad-based growth on the semiconductor side in sort of all the sub-verticals of semiconductor with, you know, almost twice or actually a little bit more than twice the way for start... projections for the year, when you look at it on a year-to-date basis. I think we're well-positioned. You know, your question about sustainability, I think we're well-positioned to participate in the semiconductor space as we go forward. And so, you know, we'll put that together in Q4 and kind of get a feel for where we think 27 is going to be. But I think in general, you know, we are well-positioned to be in these subcategories of semiconductor.

Thank you, Dr. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next question from David Silver with Freedom Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question. Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Thank you. Morning, David. Hey, thank you. Yes. Good morning. So, you know, a very robust outlook that you've painted.

I'm kind of scratching my head, and I'm going to, you know, maybe ask you about resourcing, maybe from a somewhat different angle. But, you know, I've heard you say, discuss the diversity of end markets that you're now serving and the increasing share of what you call, you know, highly differentiated products that you're working on. And, you know, when I do look at your financial... Well, your income statement, I mean, your R&D spend is kind of flat with the year before and lower than a couple years ago. And, you know, I'm just wondering about whether, you know, from a talent issue, you know, you have the, you know, resources in-house to kind of support, you know, what seems to be very strong growth and, you know, very impressive string. And new business wins. I mean, with, you know, with that order book, I think comes, you know, the thinking about how to service the customers, not just the immediate order, but, you know, longer term. So, you know, maybe discuss, you know, the collaborative nature of your R&D or technical support and, you know, what should we think about in terms of, you know, your resourcing at the R&D or technical support level? Thank you. Yeah, great question. And one that I think we continue to be very focused on and making sure we're making all the right investments in the growth areas. And I'm convinced that we are. We are continuing to leverage, in fact, our partners. So, you know, when you see our R&D spending, keep in mind that as we leverage our partners, customers, governments, consortiums, et cetera, we are looking at more of a net spending.

I mean, so. So our growth spending continues to be good. We continue to make sure that the right things are being done and focused on. At the same time, you know, we also have AI, you know, related activities. I mean, we're using sort of technology or AI related activities to sort of augment, I think, on the R&D side. When we also look at, I think, we'll call R&D or you mentioned the collaborative nature of art. Our sales and marketing efforts are much more technical, right? So you don't have a typical sales organization. You know, we have technical sales. So when we look at our overall pursuit of business, you're looking at the technical sales side, technical marketing, the R&D, the funding that's happening from external sources, and now certainly leveraging AI tools to be able to drive more efficiency and more productivity in our R&D side. So I'm convinced that we're making the right type of investments to be able to support. The order book that's coming in, the backlog that's happening, and I think being able to deliver, you know, in a really nice way to our customers.

Okay, thank you for that. If I could just ask, you know, you have, I think, Dan or another questioner talked about, you know, your proactive, I would say, investments in adding new capacity a little bit ahead of. And, and whatnot. You know, if you were to kind of look at your footprint, your global footprint, you know, you, you added capacity in Korea and whatnot, and then electronic materials more broadly. Is it the case that, you know, you want to be as close to your customers as possible as you build out, you know, let's say electronic materials, or is it Is this the case where, you know, you think that the footprint that you've established right now will sustain your growth trajectory, let's say, for the next couple of years at least? Thank you. Yeah, I think we want to do both, right? We want to have these core centers of expertise that we have established in our electronic materials business and other businesses as well, but I'll focus on electronic materials since that's what you mentioned. We've established sort of core centers of expertise for each of our facilities. At the same time, we want to make investments and we have done that. The most recent being the investment that we made in Korea where we are putting in capacity outside the U.S., close to our customers. We have made investments in our facility in Europe to make sure that we can support the growth that is there and will continue to look for both organic investments, but then also M&A investments. We want to make sure that we're leveraging. You've seen kind of what we've been able to do with our balance sheet.

And we want to be able to leverage that to be able to do perhaps more capacity-related M&A near to our customers like you mentioned. So I think we want to leverage a best of both worlds where we have four centers of expertise, but then at the same time, we have local manufacturing to be able to support our customers in region.

Okay, great. Thank you for that. I'll get back in queue.

Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I will turn the call back over to Kyle Kelleher for closing remarks.

Thank you. This concludes our third quarter 2026 earnings call. Recorded playback of this call will be available on the company's website, Materion.com. I'd like to thank you for participating on this call and your interest in Materion. I'll be available for any follow-up questions. My number is 216-383-4931. Thank you again.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.