Prepared remarks
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Moog Inc. third quarter fiscal 2026 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press *1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press *1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Aaron Astrachan, Director of Investor Relations. Aaron, please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for joining Moog's third quarter 2026 earnings release conference call. I am Aaron Astrachan, Director of Investor Relations. With me today are Patrick J. Roche, Chief Executive Officer, and Jennifer Walter, our Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we released our results and our supplemental slides, both of which are available on our website. Our earnings press release, our supplemental slides, and remarks made during our call today contain adjusted non-GAAP results. Reconciliations for these adjusted results to GAAP results are contained within the materials provided. Lastly, our comments today may include statements related to expected future results and other forward-looking statements, which are not guaranteed. Our actual results may differ materially from those described in our forward-looking statements and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that are described in our earnings press release and in our other SEC filings. Now I am happy to turn the call over to Pat.
Good morning, and welcome to the earnings call. We delivered a robust third quarter with record sales up 15% versus prior year. Our 12-month backlog was up 23% versus prior year. Our adjusted operating margin demonstrates consistent operational performance. Our record adjusted earnings per share reflect solid operating performance augmented by tariff refund and tax benefits. In addition, we delivered another quarter of very strong free cash flow generation. Demand remains strong across the portfolio. Defense is benefiting from increased investment; commercial aerospace is supported by long-term customer backlogs and strong aftermarket activity. Industrial is benefiting from growth in data center cooling. Our success in simplifying the business has helped us capture and efficiently execute on this demand growth. The result is a business with better momentum and better financial quality than a year ago.
This quarter is another clear demonstration that both our strategy and our execution are translating into stronger financial outcomes. Let's turn our attention to the end markets and macro environment, starting with defense. We are experiencing a generational inflection in defense demand both in the United States and in Europe. The debate in U.S. national security expenditure for 2027 is not whether it should increase, but by how much. The key priority areas of relevance are missile replenishment, space-based capabilities, and aircraft procurement. The demand signals are clear, and the momentum is building around the required industrial investment. The critical concern now is the expansion of industrial capacity. This is an environment where qualified content, long-term customer relationships, and operational execution matter. In that context, we are well positioned on missile actuation and controls, space systems, defense components, and selected next-generation platforms.
We will continue to invest in the capacity and capabilities that allow us to convert this step change in demand into delivered performance. The commercial aerospace market continues to expand. Aircraft order backlogs remain robust, supported by increasing passenger demand. Production is steadily increasing as bottlenecks continue to be addressed. We have good long-term visibility of increasing original equipment rates, while the elevated fleet age and constrained new aircraft availability continue to support strong aftermarket activity. Industrial markets over the last six months in both the U.S. and Europe have been solid. Demand tied to energy, semiconductors, and medical has been positive. AI data center infrastructure investment has created exceptional demand for data center cooling products. Our largest end markets are favorable with long-cycle structural growth drivers. Scaling to support growth is our primary focus.
We are actively managing facility expansion, workforce availability, and supply chain capacity to deliver. Now turning attention to the three leadership priorities that guide our work: customer focus; people, community, and planet; and financial strength. Foreign defense opportunities were a common theme at recent trade events in the United Kingdom and France, providing evidence of strong near-term European growth opportunities for us. We had a strong presence at the Farnborough International Airshow, creating the opportunity to advance discussions with customers, suppliers, and investors. The show focused attention on European defense demand, the strength of commercial aircraft backlog, and the ability of the aerospace and defense industrial base to scale. Within military aircraft, we reaffirmed, extended, and expanded distribution partnerships that enhance our global aftermarket reach.
We announced new certification and direct foreign military orders for our avionics product line. Within commercial aircraft, we enhanced our aftermarket support network through partnership and added additional airline approvals for engine accessory repairs. Eurosatory in Paris provided similar opportunities to engage with defense partners. With record attendance and increasing international presence, it was a recognition of the urgency to rapidly build capability shaped by the Ukrainian war. There was a strong focus on execution to deliver European rearmament, drones and counter-drone systems, missiles, ammunition, armored vehicles, and industrial capacity. We announced the European collaboration to combine our field-proven remote integrated weapons platform with a robotic combat vehicle. We also recently demonstrated an enhanced counter-drone system integrating third-party radar, our own AI-assisted fire control, and our remote integrated weapons platform.
Continued investment in AI data centers is fueling high demand for our data center cooling pump. We will have almost quadrupled revenue within a year. We addressed the demand surge through active management of our supply base, optimization of our manufacturing process, and the addition of production lines. We prioritized maximizing our production yield, efficiency, and flow before investing in those additional lines. The data center cooling pump production ramp demonstrates what is possible and gives confidence for the anticipated high-volume missile production ramp ahead. Across our markets, the theme is consistent: the urgent need to scale capacity to meet strong customer demand. We are well positioned to deliver. We were already a proven incumbent with strong operational performance. We now have the advantage of a simplified business creating a strong foundation to scale and grow. Now turning to people, community, and planet: talent is a key enabler to scale capacity.
Our Western New York training center, opened in 2025, is delivering real impact. To date, we have onboarded 200 production staff, trained almost 40 machinists, and certified skills of 1,400 new and existing staff. The center is reducing the time to proficiency by many weeks, which is critical as we ramp. We are extending this model to other campus locations that are experiencing significant growth. We remain disciplined in our execution and steadfast in achieving our goals. Our Baguio operation received awards for excellence in hazardous waste management and excellence in environmental compliance and stewardship. These actions are pragmatic as our markets shift towards higher demand and greater production requirements; our workforce capability, structured knowledge management, and environmentally responsible operations are key enablers of our ability to ramp. Now turning to financial strength.
The key financial measures are robust: higher sales, strong adjusted margins, and strong free cash flow. Simplification informed by 80/20 continues to be the key enabler. Space and defense has prioritized focus and improved execution by means of portfolio reviews down to the product line level. Military aircraft has tailored 20 to drive business decisions for multiyear programs. Commercial aircraft is using segmented P&L in decision making around transitions and focus factory activities. And industrial continues to demonstrate site-level improvements while now looking for group-wide opportunities. We are clear about where we win, disciplined in how we work, selective about where we invest, and able to turn attractive market demand into improved financial performance. Now let me turn briefly to guidance, updating our fiscal 2026 guidance to reflect our view of market conditions and our performance in the third quarter.
We are increasing revenue guidance to reflect our success meeting increased demand. We are increasing adjusted operating margin and earnings per share to reflect tariff refunds and tax impacts in addition to solid operational performance. And we are increasing cash flow conversion to reflect lower capital expenditure. The broader message is that fiscal 2026 is shaping up to be another outstanding year. We will deliver substantial revenue growth reflecting the acceleration in demand and outstanding financial results reflecting our effective execution. We remain focused on delivering the year and continuing to build financial strength. And with that, let me hand over to Jennifer for a detailed breakdown on the quarter and our updated fiscal 2026 guidance.
Thanks, Patrick. Our financial performance this quarter was very strong. We had record sales and adjusted earnings per share and robust operating margin and cash generation. Before I get into the details of our performance, I wanted to highlight an item that occurred in the quarter and that is included in the results I will talk through. We recognized the benefit related to the recovery of previously paid tariffs in our adjusted results. We incurred these tariffs in the second half of fiscal 2025 and the first half of fiscal 2026. There is a $30 million benefit included in operating profit for the tariff refund this quarter, and that represents 270 basis points of operating margin and about $0.70 of earnings per share. There are other items that we excluded from our adjusted results in the third quarter. The net benefit that we excluded this quarter was $1.02 per share. We completed a comprehensive review of our domestic R&D tax credit and refined our methodology so that it better reflects the breadth of our innovation activities.
The benefit attributed to prior years was $35 million. We also excluded an $8 million one-time tax benefit related to an ongoing legal entity simplification initiative. In addition, we excluded $13 million of charges that were largely associated with simplification activities. I will now talk through our third quarter results excluding these adjustments. Sales in the third quarter of $1.1 billion were 15% higher than last year's third quarter. Sales increased in each of our segments, with three of our segments increasing in the high teens, and the other in the high-single digits. Space and defense sales were $336 million, up 17% over the third quarter of last year, reflecting broad-based defense demand. Demand was particularly strong for missile controls and space vehicles. In military aircraft, sales of $245 million were up 9% over the third quarter of last year. Aftermarket sales were robust, reflecting both increased repair and overhaul activity and sales of spares.
In addition, activity continued to increase on the MV-75 program. Commercial aircraft sales of $254 million increased 17% over the same quarter a year ago. The increase was driven by higher volume and pricing on some of our major production programs as well as strong aftermarket sales. Industrial sales were $282 million in the quarter, up 18% over the same quarter a year ago. Half of the increase was driven by the rapidly expanding data center cooling market. The rest of the business was also strong, most notably from medical devices and energy. We will now shift to operating margins. Adjusted operating margin in the third quarter was 16.4%, up 280 basis points from the third quarter a year ago. The tariff refund contributed significantly to the increase in operating margin. Underlying business performance was also strong. These benefits were partially offset by last year's third quarter benefit associated with the sale of a noncore product line that we decided to exit within commercial aircraft.
Exclusive of the tariff refund and last year's benefit associated with the sale of the noncore product line, operating margin was up 80 basis points. Space and defense operating margin was 15.7% in the third quarter, up 150 basis points. The increase was driven by operational performance and, to a lesser extent, the tariff refund. These benefits were partially offset by increased product development, business capture, and operational readiness investments. Military aircraft operating margin was 14.7% in the third quarter, up 290 basis points from the third quarter last year. Profitable sales growth both for original equipment and in the aftermarket drove the margin expansion. In addition, the tariff refund contributed to the increase in operating margin. Commercial aircraft operating margin was 15.2%, 50 basis points above that of the third quarter last year. Operating margin expanded from pricing benefits and the tariff refund.
Last year's third quarter product line sale as well as a less favorable mix partially offset these benefits. Industrial operating margin was 19.9%, significantly above that of the same period a year ago. The tariff refund contributed nicely to the exceptional margin performance this quarter. In addition, the operating margin expanded related to the growing data center cooling pump business. Putting it all together, adjusted earnings per share came in at $3.72, up 60% compared to last year's third quarter. Half of the increase was attributable to stronger business performance largely related to higher sales. The other half of the increase was due to the tariff refunds. Let's shift over to cash flow. In the third quarter, we generated free cash flow of $133 million, which is nicely above our adjusted net earnings. Strong earnings contributed to our cash generation. We continue to make progress related to operational efficiencies, holding working capital relatively constant despite our strong sales growth.
Capital expenditures were relatively light compared to recent periods, due to timing of capital investments. Our leverage ratio was 1.5x as of the end of the third quarter. Both our earnings performance and cash generation have driven our leverage ratio down. Our capital deployment priorities will continue to center around organic growth, and we will pursue strategic acquisitions to complement our existing portfolio. We strive to have a balanced capital deployment strategy over the long term. I will now shift over to our updated guidance for the year. We are increasing our 2026 guidance from a quarter ago for sales, adjusted operating margin, adjusted earnings per share, and free cash flow conversion. We are increasing our sales guidance for the year by $50 million. In space and defense, we are increasing our guidance by $10 million to reflect broad-based defense demand, in particular for missile control.
We are also increasing guidance for military aircraft by $10 million reflecting the strong aftermarket activity in the third quarter. In addition, we are increasing guidance for industrial by $30 million reflecting growing demand for data center cooling. We are increasing our adjusted operating margin by 70 basis points to 14.1% to reflect the tariff refund. The increases in each of our segments also reflect the tariff refund with the operating margins of the underlying businesses remaining the same. We are increasing our FY 2026 adjusted earnings per share guidance by $1.51 to $11.65 plus or minus $0.10. The increase consists of the tariff refunds, the increase to the current year R&D tax credit, and earnings on the higher level of sales now projected. Finally, turning to cash: projecting free cash flow conversion to be about 70%, up from our guidance a quarter ago. Capital expenditures will be lower than previously projected due to the timing of investments to support our organic growth.
Fiscal year 2026 is shaping up to be another great year. We will achieve a record level of sales, further expand our operating margin, and make meaningful progress towards generating strong free cash flow. And now I will turn it back to Patrick.
Thanks, Jennifer. We delivered an outstanding third quarter. The results reflect favorable markets but, more importantly, reflect the work our teams are doing to improve the company. We are focused on customers. We are investing in people, capability, and environmentally responsible operations. And we are strengthening our financial performance through pricing, simplification, and disciplined execution. Defense momentum remains a powerful structural driver. Commercial aerospace continues to provide long-cycle visibility and aftermarket strength. And industrial benefits from strong data center cooling growth. We are encouraged by the progress but we are not complacent. We are continuing to focus on execution, capacity, working capital, and delivery. We will continue to focus on the fundamentals: serving our customers, simplifying the business, investing behind durable demand, and delivering on our commitments. And with that, let me open the floor to questions.
Questions and answers
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press *1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press *1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Tomo with JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to ask about the data center cooling pumps in industrial. Could you give us more color: is the growth coming from existing customer expansions or new customer wins? And then how should we look at the opportunity in Q4 as well as any commentary about the capacity expansion plan as well? Appreciate it. Thank you. And then follow-up on industrial margin profiles: does industrial margin improve meaningfully even excluding the tariff? And how should we think about the margin trajectory from here, including all the simplifications and 80/20 initiatives that you have? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks for the question, Tomo. The demand is coming ultimately from one of the large hyperscalers through two cooling distribution unit manufacturers. So it is not a customer expansion, but it is just greater demand through that customer stream to the end market. We have increased from around $25 million in fiscal 2025 to close to $100 million in fiscal 2026. That is a quadrupling of the throughput. I have talked in previous calls about ramping up our production. That has been very successful for us. We brought engineering talent to bear from other parts of the organization to improve yields, to improve efficiency on the line and flow. Once we had achieved that, we then replicated the line. So we doubled up our lines in Murphy, North Carolina, and we have just brought a line onstream in Bangalore, India. So we have three production lines running, capacity of about 1,300 pumps per week. Thank you. On the follow-up regarding industrial margin: I think our underlying margin performance in industrial has improved significantly through all of the activities that includes site rationalization, disposition of assets in the past, consolidation of sites, plus 80/20 being driven extensively throughout the operations. So, yes, performance of the underlying business is strong. Thank you. I appreciate the color.
Your next question comes from the line of Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Patrick, Jennifer, and Erin. Maybe following up on the data center, you have talked quite a lot about it. During prepared remarks, seeing a business go from $25 million in annual revenue to $100 million is a pretty big step up. I was wondering if you can talk more about the origin of this product, meaning were you displacing someone else? And then what was your penetration before? As we start seeing these significant builds, how big could this business truly be if the industry builds what is in the plan through 2030?
Kristine, good morning. Thanks for the question. This data center cooling product is pretty exciting for us. We call it the RM44. The product came to the market in 2024 initially. It was tested out around that time and found a lot of traction with one of the main hyperscalers in the market. The pump itself is used for in-rack cooling, so this is where you have high-performance AI processing going on and you need to pump liquid through those processors to cool them down. So we are in-rack with this product. This is the first product in our offering for data center cooling. We have the next generation product, which is intended for in-row cooling, so now multiple racks being cooled by one CDU. That is undergoing qualification testing at the moment. It is designed to meet what is called the OCP v3 standard, which has been established by Google. It will come into production next year. Expect both products to be in production during the course of fiscal 2027, and we see continuing demand for these products in the marketplace.
And, Patrick, could you quantify how large your potential market share could be? With the $100 million that you have today, is this just presence with one hyperscaler and could this expand to other hyperscalers? Just give us an idea of where this could grow. Could this $100 million be $500 million? Could it be $1 billion? I want to understand size and scope and timing.
There is tremendous upside potential to this, Kristine. As I said, we are predominantly satisfying the needs of one hyperscaler. One of the options for expansion of the business is to move across to supply others, so that is a real potential for us. We supply predominantly one hyperscaler and two of the CPU manufacturers. There are other CPU manufacturers out there as well, and discussions are already under way. Just to correct: our business is closer to $100 million within this fiscal year, just short of it.
Oh, gotcha. Thank you. And if I could ask another question on missiles: we are starting to see the MAC programs get converted into firm contracts. You have said in the past that missiles are about 20% of the Space and Defense segment. I wanted to understand a little better how much visibility you are getting from customers as their contracts firm up and what the CapEx requirements are, if any, to meet some of the program wins and the program volume increases scheduled for the next few years.
We expect the missile program to be around $275 million in fiscal 2026, which is over 20% growth year over year, and that does not reflect the significant step up that is coming through those seven-year agreements. As yet, the impact of those seven-year agreements has not yet flowed down to our backlog, Kristine. But we are in very active discussions with all of the primes. We know exactly what their requirements and expectations are for demand over the coming years because we have been doing scenario analysis and exercises over the course of the last 18 months to prepare for that scaling activity. So there is significant more upside to come on missiles that is not yet reflected in our backlog. On scaling: we expect an optimization of production flow and improvements in yield. We will replicate production lines to facilitate that scaling. We have some space within existing facilities in Salt Lake City to build out additional lines that will cover us for a period of time before we would have to do a building expansion. It requires capital primarily for test equipment, not heavy machining equipment. We use external supply chain and internal operations to produce the cast systems, control actuation systems that are used on the missiles.
Your next question comes from the line of Gautam Khanna with TD Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning, guys. I was wondering on the MV-75, because there has been a bit of a funding gap. Textron has talked about managing to what they expect the reprogramming action to be. I am just curious your view—have you seen any slowdown in work? And what is your visibility into calendar Q4 of what Moog's level of activity on the program will be if the funding does not come through for Textron?
Thanks for the question, Gautam. We have had consistent levels of work activity on MV-75, so we have not had a disruption or slowdown in workflow over the last quarter. We anticipate that continues through the fourth quarter as well, and that is all built into our guidance. Textron did have a disruption to their workflow over the last quarter; that is resolving itself. Everyone is back at work in their facilities, and they have committed to self-funding the gap if necessary over the course of the next number of months. In some cases, they have a do-not-exceed on our spend, which is already factored into our guidance.
Okay. I understand that is factored into the guidance through Moog's fiscal year end, but I am curious what happens come calendar fiscal Q1 for Moog? Do you have visibility into that quarter as well?
We have not given guidance for next year, but we are pretty confident that the momentum of this program will continue.
Jennifer, I may have missed it, but can you quantify the tariff recovery by segment in the quarter?
Yes, I can, Gautam. It was $30 million on a consolidated basis, which is 270 basis points of operating margin. If you go into the slides, you will be able to see it for our guidance change. For the year, the biggest segment impact we are changing guidance for is industrial, which is 120 basis points for the year. So take that times four or so to get to a quarterly amount, which is about 480 basis points in industrial for the quarter. Commercial for the year is going up by 90 basis points, so that makes the quarter about 360 basis points. Those are the two biggest segments. Space and defense is 30 basis points for the year, which is 120 basis points in the quarter, and military is 20 basis points for the year or 80 basis points for the quarter.
Okay. And I guess where I was confused: the delta in sales was $50 million across the consolidated entity, correct? We have talked about $30 million from tariffs that were unexpected. So $30 of the $50 is tariff related. I was curious where the other $20 by segment is coming from?
Just to clarify: that $30 million is not in sales; it is an operating profit benefit. So it is just hitting operating profit, not sales, which is why it has the margin impacts I noted. When you look at our operating margin performance for the quarter, we had the 270 basis points due to the tariffs, and then we also had last year's product line sale—the helicopter kinematics business. That benefit was 70 basis points last year, so that is a drag on us this year of 70 basis points. That leaves the underlying business performance up by 80 basis points year-over-year for Q3.
And just one last one for me. I wanted to ask if there is any disconnect in Moog's sell-in on the A350 or the 787 relative to assembly rates and delivery rates, or are you seeing pretty consistent order patterns? If you could comment on that.
No. We are maintaining pretty consistent production plans, and they are in line with the needs of our customers. So no, we are not seeing any disconnects. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Tanwanteng with CJS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions, and congrats on a nice quarter. I was wondering if you could provide just a little more detail on the recent contracts—about $100 billion, one of your customers on these seven-year missile programs. Is that in line with your expectations, number one? Number two, when do you really start to see that flowing through to you on the P&L? And then number three, just as a side question, are you included on the PAC-3 derivative that is supposed to be lower cost? Thank you.
Thanks very much for the questions, Jonathan. Yes, the orders that have been received by the primes are in line with what we were expecting. They are expecting step-ups in production rates of factors of three for PAC-3 and factors of four for THAAD and so on through the MAC programs. Those are all in line with prior discussions we have been having with our customers. So we are preparing to step up appropriately to support that demand. As I said earlier, that demand has not yet flowed down to us in terms of orders reflected in backlog. We are in very active discussions because, as you know, this is an urgent requirement of the U.S. government, and we expect in the near future to conclude our discussions with the primes. Our ability to step up—we are confident that we can do that. On the low-cost program: much of the steering controls required are very similar between the low-cost missile being proposed and existing missiles. So we believe we have an opportunity. The CAS system is a small portion of the overall system cost, so there is an opportunity there as well.
And then a second question, again on data center opportunity. Are you courting additional customers beyond the hyperscale customer that is pulling all of your capacity today, or is that dependent on the CDU manufacturer? And second, do you actually have the capacity or capacity planning to address more than one customer at this point?
Over the course of the last 12 months, our focus has been on getting the capacity up to the required levels, because we had more demand than we could satisfy from the existing customer. Our outreach has already started on business development across multiple CDU manufacturers and hyperscalers.
Your next question comes from the line of Alexandra Mandry with Truist Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, Patrick, Jennifer, and Erin. Great results, and thanks for taking my question. I had a follow-up to the missile discussion. Are there opportunities to be a second source and gain additional market share? And wanted to get your view on the potential margin expansion opportunity considering the volume increasing multiple times on these platforms?
Thanks. Good morning, Alex. On the first part: are there more opportunities out there? We are actively looking to increase scope on some of those platforms. We have content we believe could support other aspects of the missile as well, not just the CAS system. That is active business development we are pursuing and could increase the scale of the business.
On margin: we have solid operations and production capabilities currently. Certainly we will scale up on that, and we have clear expectations for managing to an acceptable margin profile as we scale.
Your next question comes from the line of Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for letting me back in queue for a fourth question. Jennifer, during prepared remarks you mentioned strategic acquisitions to complement your existing portfolio. I wanted to clarify: is this different versus your historical outlook on acquisitions, which were more bolt-ons, typically below $100 million? Is this a shift or a continuation of looking for bolt-ons?
Thanks. I would say it is a continuation but with more secure readiness. Our focus right now is on our organic operations. You will see that come through in capital expenditures even though we were lighter this quarter. We have great organic growth opportunities, and you will see that come through in R&D and capital expenditures to secure our business. We do want to complement our organic growth with acquisitions as well. We feel better prepared to do that today than a couple of years ago because of the simplification activities we have completed. We can more successfully and confidently integrate an acquisition today than we could a couple of years ago. I would still characterize the focus as bolt-on type acquisitions. We may go up a little bit higher than historical sizes, but often those opportunities are scarce. We would be looking to complement our organic growth specifically in strategic areas of the defense portfolio and other portfolios. We are also developing our capabilities and skills internally. We bought the COTSWorks acquisition last year; it is performing very well and integration is proceeding nicely. That also gives us confidence as we think about other bolt-on opportunities.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Patrick J. Roche for closing remarks.
So that concludes our earnings call. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to our update on the business, and I look forward to providing an update again next quarter. Thank you all very much.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.