AP Ampco-Pittsburgh Corporation
$6.00
Ampco-Pittsburgh Corporation Q3 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript
AI Conference Call Analysis
Sign in or subscribe to read.Chuck
Conference Operator
Good day and welcome to the Amco-Pittsburgh Corporation Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialists by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. And to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Danny Litwin, Corporate Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Please go ahead, sir.
Danny Litwin
Corporate Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Thank you, Chuck, and good morning to everyone joining us on today's third quarter 2026 conference call. Joining me today are Brett McBrayer, our Chief Executive Officer, and David Anderson, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation. Also joining us on the call today is Sam Lyon, President of Union Electric Steel Corporation. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that participants on this call may make statements Thank you. Thank you. suggested in any forward-looking statements due to various risk factors, including those discussed in the corporation's most recently filed Form 10-K and in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Brett McBrayer
Brett McBrayer
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Danny. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Our results from this quarter reflect the progress we've made in building a stronger, more profitable Amco-Pittsburgh. Our third quarter is seasonally our slowest quarter in the Forge and Cast Engineer product segment. Even so, we generated strong cash flow and pushed this cash to work, paying down debt and strengthening our balance sheet. Cash from operations improved $15.5 million versus the prior year, and Free Cash Flow improved by $15.1 million. As a result, we reduced net debt by $19.5 million in the quarter alone. Net sales increased 3% versus the prior year to $111.7 million with net income of $0.5 million or 2 cents per share. Adjusted EBITDA was $9.4 million for the quarter and an 8.4% margin. Looking ahead, our backlog stands at $379.5 million, up by over $50 million this year. For more details on our Air and Liquid Systems segment, I'll now turn the call over to David Anderson, our Chief Financial Officer and President of Air and Liquid Systems.
David Anderson
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation
Thank you, Brett. Good morning. 2026 continues to be a positive year for Air and Liquid. Q3 revenue increased 17% versus prior year. while year-to-date revenue increased 12% versus prior year. Adjusted EBITDA in Q3 increased 9% versus prior year while year-to-date adjusted EBITDA increased 31% versus prior year to the highest level in Air & Liquids history. Backlog is 29% higher than year-end 2025. In addition to the backlog at the end of Q3, Air & Liquids saw strong customer orders at the beginning of Q4. An additional 31 million in customer orders was received in October, led by 21 million in orders from the power generation market. Increasing demand in the power generation market is fueling demand in both our commercial pump and heat exchanger products. Our commercial pumps are used in gas turbines, which are seeing strong growth, while we continue to be the dominant supplier of heat exchangers into the growing nuclear market. There continues to be strong demand from the U.S. Navy and we expect this demand to continue as the Navy moves forward with fleet expansion plans. The manufacturing equipment that we have received from the U.S. Navy funding program has allowed us to increase our capacity to meet the expected growth in demand. Market activity remains strong and we continue to focus on increasing our manufacturing capacity to meet the increasing demand. We are bringing in new equipment, increasing our headcount, and improving our manufacturing efficiencies to meet the increasing market demand. In summary, Air and Liquid is on a record pace for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, and we are well positioned in markets that are showing significant long-term growth.
Brett McBrayer
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, David. Sam Lyon, President of ForgingCast, Engine and Products segment, will now share more details regarding his group's performance.
Sam Lyon
President of Forged and Cast Engineered Products Segment
Thank you, Brett, and good morning, everyone. For the third quarter of 2026, the forged and cast engineered product segment reported net sales of 68.9 million compared to 71.5 million in Q3 of 2025. The decline reflects our exits from the UK facility and the AUP distribution business. Excluding prior year UK sales, segment sales grew about 11%, reflecting the planned transfer of work rules from the UK to our Sweden facility and growth in FEP Segment adjusted EBITDA was $7.7 million, up 9% from the prior year on lower sales and in line with the second quarter, despite our seasonal outages. Sweden performance continued to improve on better productivity and higher utilization levels. Year-over-year is not a clear comparison for FCEP, as we were producing at low rates in the UK in Q3 of 2025, and Melting Head Halted, lowering losses as we were evaluating the future of that facility. AUP, our small distribution business, was also in the midst of winding down. The losses from the UK and AUP are now fully out of the business. As mentioned in the press release, we extended the normal annual maintenance outage on the 5,000 ton forging press at our Burgettstown facility to complete repairs that extend its useful life ahead of an increasing order book. Demand for rules is improving, particularly in North America. Tariff protections continue to support steel mill utilization in the U.S., which drives rule consumption. The tariffs also directly support FEP demand, which continues to be strong. Our backlog and momentum for 2027 continues to build. Brett, back to you. Thank you, Sam.
Brett McBrayer
Chief Executive Officer
I'll now turn the call back over to David Anderson for more details regarding our financial performance for the quarter.
David Anderson
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation
Thank you, Brett. As indicated in both our Form 10-Q and in our Press Release 8K filed this morning, Amco-Pittsburgh reported Q3 net sales of $111.7 million compared to $108 million last year, as growth in the ALP segment more than offset the lower revenue caused by the closure of the UK casserole facility in Q4 of 2025. Year-to-date revenue was $322.9 million compared to $325.4 million as the closure of the UK facility was partially offset by higher sales in the ALP segment. Q3 adjusted EBITDA of $9.4 million increased 2% compared to prior year, while year-to-date adjusted EBITDA of $27.1 million increased 4% versus prior year. Q3 backlog of $380 million has increased 51 million or 15% versus year-end 2025. Our cash flow and debt position improved significantly in Q3. In previous calls, we indicated our goal in 2026 was to pay down debt by $8 to $10 million. At the end of Q3, our debt has been paid down by approximately $13.3 million. So we are now well ahead of our targeted debt reduction for the year. Our continued focus on reducing working capital was the primary driver that allowed the debt pay down in Q3. In summary, Q3 was a successful step forward as we entered Q4 with lower debt and a strong order backlog. Operator, at this time we would now like to open the line for questions.
Brett McBrayer
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Chuck
Conference Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. And at this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And the first question will come from Justin Bergner with Cabelli Funds. Please go ahead.
Justin Bergner
Cabelli Funds
Good morning, everyone.
Brett McBrayer
Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Justin.
Justin Bergner
Cabelli Funds
Nice to talk to you, Brett and team. And I guess a few questions, some of which might just ask for clarification on some of your opening remarks. So the 31 million in air and liquid processing orders in October, of which 21 million were in power generation, which segments of air and liquid processing were they in?
David Anderson
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation
Ted, Justin, it's Dave. The 21 million was aerofins, so heat exchanger and heat exchanger related items. That was the significant order activity.
Justin Bergner
Cabelli Funds
Gotcha. And then the goal of debt reduction, you said you've done $13 million year-to-date. What was the goal for this year, and are the working capital improvements sustainable, or are they just temporal based upon timing of receivables, collections, and what have you?
David Anderson
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation
The goal we had set was $8 to $10 million, so at $13 we're now ahead of that. And yeah, we believe they're sustainable. We don't see them reversing back out.
Justin Bergner
Cabelli Funds
Okay, so you can operate this lower level of working capital going forward. Was there any action that was taken to, I guess, collect on the receivables? Because it seems like that was the big boost.
David Anderson
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation
Well, there's a few things that we've been working on through this year and we continue to work on. Number one is improving our terms with our customers. Also looking at how we get more cash up front in customer deposits. So those are really the things that are leading for accounts receivable.
Justin Bergner
Cabelli Funds
Okay. And would you say that there's farther to go in the working capital front or you've kind of gotten the 80-20 and it's going to be more gradual improvement from here?
David Anderson
Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation
I think more gradual. I mean, we've gotten significant changes, but we still are pushing forward with looking at terms and things that we can improve. I think you can always do a little better is my sense.
Justin Bergner
Cabelli Funds
Sure. And then maybe lastly, the outage on the Forge Press, was that unexpected? And is it pretty much behind the company as you get into Q4, as you get into the second half of Q4?
Sam Lyon
President of Forged and Cast Engineered Products Segment
It's behind us, Justin. We do an outage every summer and we inspect the press. And we found some small issues on the base that needed corrected. And so we took the opportunity to do that. As I stated, next year looks to be busier than this year, so we wanted to make sure that we got that behind us. But it's been operating for several months now, so it's back in business.
Justin Bergner
Cabelli Funds
Great. Thank you for taking my questions.
Chuck
Conference Operator
Yep. Thanks, Justin. Again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1. And this will conclude our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Brett McBrayer for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
Brett McBrayer
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. To wrap up, this quarter demonstrates what we've been building toward. Stronger cash generation, a healthier balance sheet, and a growing backlog. With our order book up meaningfully and positive momentum across our businesses, we're well positioned as we head into 2027. None of these improvements happen without our employees. I want to thank them for the work they do every day to make Amco Pittsburgh a stronger company. Thank you to our board of directors and our shareholders for your continued support, and thank you for joining us this morning.
Chuck
Conference Operator
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.