Pentair plc Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Welcome to the Pentair second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist 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 one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeff Thompson, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator.

Welcome to Pentair's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. On the call with me are John Stauch, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Fishman, our interim Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, we will provide details on our second quarter performance as outlined in this morning's press release. On the Pentair Investor Relations website, you can find our earnings release and slide deck, which is intended to supplement our prepared remarks during today's call and provide a reconciliation of differences between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures that we will reference. The non-GAAP financial measures provided should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

They are included as additional clarifying items to aid investors in further understanding the company's performance, in addition to the impact these items and events have on the financial results. Before we begin, let me remind you that during our presentation today, we will make forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. Listeners are cautioned that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Pentair. These risks and uncertainties can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We advise listeners to carefully review the risk factors in our most recent Form 10-Q and Form 10-K. Please note that during the presentation today, we will be making references to record financial results. These references reflect the time period post the nVent separation in 2018, unless noted otherwise.

Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for questions. Please limit your questions to two and re-enter the queue to allow everyone an opportunity to participate. I will now turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. As you saw this morning, in addition to our quarterly results, we announced that we have agreed to acquire Taco Group Holdings, a market leader in hydronic and water-based solutions. This exciting transaction aligns with our strategic priorities and allows us to accelerate our growth trajectory. First, let's begin with an executive summary on Slide four. The second quarter was slightly better than the July 14th pre-announcement and reflects efforts to realign Pool channel inventory ahead of the 2027 pool season. Pool remains a fantastic business, and we believe it is well positioned for return to robust growth in 2027. Importantly, Water Solutions and Flow remain on track to deliver full year expectations, and we expect to see improved revenue growth from these businesses in the second half of 2026.

The addition of Taco creates another platform in Water Solutions that aligns with Investor Day themes and accelerates our growth profile. Please turn to the Q2 overview slide on Slide five. As we shared in the pre-announcement on July 14th, Q2 was a challenging quarter, driven by the underperformance of our Pool segment, and specifically the acknowledgement that we would not realize the pool dealer growth that we had originally planned. We are disappointed with the impact this had on our overall business, I want to emphasize two important points. First, our underperformance was concentrated in Pool. The Flow and Water Solutions businesses delivered record return on sales, even when excluding the benefit of tariff refunds, further reinforcing the resilience of our balanced portfolio.

We believe the Pool challenges are temporary, and we remain confident in the attractive nature of the segment and our position as a market leader. We'll discuss in the following slide, we have a clear plan to address the near-term challenges we are facing, and return the business to robust growth as we have historically realized. Second quarter adjusted operating income included approximately $35 million of tariff refunds across our three reporting segments. During the quarter, we repurchased 150 million shares in the open market as we continue to put our capital to work to drive long-term shareholder returns. For full year 2026, we are reaffirming our adjusted EPS guidance range of $4.60-$4.80, communicated through our pre-announcement on July 14th. Please turn to our Pool overview and growth action plan on Slide six.

The year-over-year decline in Pool sales was largely driven by a more pronounced inventory alignment with major channel partners than previously expected. Learning the full magnitude of the inventory reduction during the quarter, we acted with urgency to address the issue, and we are confident that the inventory levels will be optimized by the end of the Q3, setting us up nicely for the 2027 pool season. A smaller portion of the sales decline was related to moderating sell-through due to ongoing end market pressure across discretionary residential end markets in North America. We estimate modest movement in share on some older pool pads where we aren't capturing our fair share of replacement equipment installed 10 to 15 years ago. Our action plan includes initiatives to resolve this issue and increase aftermarket share moving forward.

As these dynamics became clear throughout the course of the quarter, we initiated a comprehensive review of our Pool business to determine how best to adapt to our current environment and ensure we are positioned for success heading into next year's Pool season. This review showed us a few key points. First, we remain an industry leader with a premier brand, strong customer base, and a large installed base, with leading positions in energy efficient and smart connected Pool technologies. We believe the challenges we are facing are temporary and do not reflect a structural change in the Pool market or our long-term opportunity. Finally, we need to deepen dealer engagement and accelerate customer-driven innovation to deliver the value-added differentiated solutions that have become synonymous with the Pentair brand.

We have a clear action plan to invest in our highest performing growth initiatives and position the Pool business for a return to more normalized performance in 2027. These actions include aligning the Pool sales organization marketing strategies by region, and realigning incentives with the industry growth priorities to ensure we have the right products and service levels in our most important geographic markets. Implementing a dealer-centric and segmented sales process to drive enhanced engagement with channel partners and increase aftermarket growth. An increasing investment in customer-driven innovation to expand core Pool product categories with more differentiated value-added solutions. We are focused on the work underway and the opportunities ahead. Pool remains an attractive market with compelling profitable growth opportunities.

We are confident the actions we are taking will strengthen the business and position it to deliver on those opportunities, and we expect to build momentum throughout the rest of 2026 and beyond. Now let's turn to the strategic rationale and benefits of Taco acquisition on slide seven. We believe Taco is a natural fit for our business. It advances our growth strategy and meets our disciplined M&A criteria. Taco broadens Pentair's innovative suite of Water Solutions, accelerating growth, and strengthening our ability to serve more customers across more commercial, infrastructure, and residential applications. The combination also brings together Pentair's innovation engine and Taco's strong engineering and product development capabilities. Together, we believe there are meaningful opportunities to develop new solutions that address customers' evolving water needs, including efficiency, reliability, and sustainability.

Importantly, this transaction significantly strengthens our positions in attractive high-growth commercial end markets, including HVAC, data centers, and related infrastructure build-outs. Demand for solutions in these markets is supported by key secular trends, including infrastructure investment, digital infrastructure, and the AI revolution, energy efficiency, and sustainable water management. Our increased exposure in these areas will allow us to create an attractive, diversified growth engine and enhance our resilience. During our investor day earlier this year, we identified the residential utility room and building a broader, more scaled offering for the North American plumber as a key growth priority. Taco expands the breadth and scale of our plumbing offerings and positions us to increase share in this high-growth category. Taco will also expand our channel network, creating compelling cross-selling opportunities. Taco is a strong manufacturer representative model and established relationships with OEMs, distributors, contractors, engineers, and end users.

Taco's large installed base will allow us to leverage these channel opportunities to expand our aftermarket business. In fact, approximately 85% of its revenue is associated with replacement products, maintenance, and system upgrades. That durable demand will create more customer touchpoints and deepen those relationships, supporting growing recurring revenue streams and enhancing our resilience. This isn't just an opportunity to bring in an outstanding business into Pentair. It's an opportunity to bring in an outstanding growth-focused team. We look forward to welcoming the Taco team to Pentair, and we are confident that our shared values and commitment to excellence will allow us to seamlessly integrate our organizations as we work to capture the compelling opportunities ahead. With that, I'd like to welcome back Bob Fishman, who is rejoining Pentair as interim CFO while we search for a successor.

Bob previously served as the Pentair CFO for six very successful years. We couldn't be happier to have him back on the team. Bob will walk through our financial results in more detail. Bob? Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone.

I'm excited to be back at Pentair supporting the CFO transition, working with such a great team. Let's start on slide eight. In Q2, we reported sales of $933 million, adjusted operating income of $237 million, ROS of 25.4%, and adjusted EPS of $1.14. These results are slightly better than what we communicated in our pre-announcement on July 14th. Core sales were down 17% year-over-year, driven primarily by the $170 million Pool channel inventory de-stocking. Moving to adjusted operating income, lower Pool volume was the primary year-over-year headwind. The volume decline and inflation were partially offset by price realization, $14 million of productivity savings, and approximately $35 million of tariff refunds. Despite the recent challenges in Pool, we continue to invest in growth initiatives that support our long-term strategy.

Please turn to slide nine. Flow sales were up 5% year-over-year to $264 million, driven by the Hydra-Stop acquisition. Order wins in the quarter across commercial building, data center, and desalination markets highlight the breadth of the portfolio and provide confidence in our long-term growth trajectory. Segment income grew 27%, and return on sales increased 470 basis points to 26.5%. Even when excluding the benefit of tariff refunds, Flow delivered record return on sales driven by productivity, the acquisition of Hydra-Stop, and price. Please turn to slide 10. In Q2, Water Solutions sales decreased 5% to $422 million, driven primarily by the sale of our commercial service business in Q2 2025. Core segment sales declined 3%. Commercial sales were down 6%, inclusive of negative 8% impact from the Q2 2025 business exit.

Residential sales were down 4% year-over-year, as we lapped one final quarter of lower margin portfolio exits in our residential filtration business. The pro channel continued to grow during the quarter, reflecting gains supported by our 80-20 focus on top customers and strength in our combined product offering as we bring our residential pump and filtration portfolio together. Importantly, this growth came from repeatable, higher quality demand. Segment income grew 17% to $126 million, and return on sales increased 560 basis points to 30%, driven by disciplined pricing and productivity. Water Solutions segment income included $18 million of tariff refunds, the largest benefit among the three segments, but similar to Flow, delivered record return on sales even when excluding this benefit. Please turn to slide 11. In Q2, Pool sales declined 42% to $247 million, and segment income was $58 million, down 62%.

Return on sales was 23.4%, down from 35.7% in Q2 2025. The reduction in sales and income was mainly driven by the $170 million channel inventory destock in the quarter. Price offset inflation, excluding the one-time tariff refund benefit. We expect that the actions that John described earlier will drive significant growth in Pool in 2027. Please turn to slide 12. Our balance sheet remains strong. Our net debt leverage ratio was 1.4 times as of the end of the second quarter. In Q2, we repurchased $150 million of shares, reflecting our strong confidence in the long-term strategy. As communicated earlier this year, we increased our dividend by 8% and achieved our 50th consecutive year of dividend increases, making Pentair a Dividend King while proudly maintaining our Dividend Aristocrat status.

Our significant annual free cash flow generation has enabled us to strategically deploy capital via debt paydown, dividends, share repurchases, and strategic acquisitions. Let's turn to our outlook on slide 13. Our current guidance excludes the Taco acquisition, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter. For the full year, we are reaffirming our adjusted EPS guidance provided on July 14th of approximately $4.60 to $4.80. Also for the full year, we expect total Pentair sales in fiscal 2026 to be down approximately 4%-7%, consistent with the July 14th pre-announcement, or a midpoint of approximately $3.95 billion. Flow and Water Solutions are unchanged from the previous guidance given during our Q1 earnings call.

Flow sales to be up approximately mid-single digits to high single digits. Water Solutions sales are expected to be up approximately flat, with core sales up approximately low single digits. Pool sales are expected to decrease approximately 18%-22% in fiscal 2026, consistent with the July 14th pre-announcement. We believe the right sizing of channel inventory this year positions the company for robust Pool growth in 2027. Within our down 4%-7% sales guidance for total Pentair, we expect full year price to be up approximately 3%, with FX acquisitions and divestitures providing a net benefit of approximately 50 basis points, and the remaining change reflecting lower volume. We expect total Pentair adjusted operating income to decrease approximately 5%-9%. We expect price to offset inflation and approximately $55 million of productivity savings net of investments.

We are executing well on our productivity initiatives, but the savings now include the inefficiencies associated with the lower Pool volume. Tariff refunds reflect a range of outcomes from $35 million-$50 million, as described in our pre-announcement on July 14th. For the third quarter, we expect sales to be down approximately 4%-6%, or a midpoint of approximately $970 million. We expect Flow sales to be up approximately high single digits, which includes our Hydra-Stop acquisition of approximately $10 million of sales in the quarter at approximately 30% ROS. We anticipate Water Solutions sales to be up approximately low single digits. As a reminder, we divested the commercial services business in Q2 of last year, we do not face this sales headwind in Q3 for comparative purposes.

Pool sales are expected to be down approximately 23%-25% as we continue to right size channel inventories for the 2027 Pool season. We expect third quarter adjusted operating income to decrease approximately 14%-16%. We are also introducing adjusted EPS guidance for the third quarter of approximately $1.50-$1.80. We anticipate that the actions underway will support significant sales, operating income, and EPS growth in 2027. I'd like to now take the opportunity to provide additional detail on the exciting announcement of the Taco acquisition. Please turn to slide 15, titled Transaction Overview. Under the terms of the agreement, Pentair will acquire Taco for $1.4 billion subject to customary adjustments. The purchase price represents approximately 10.5x expected 2026 adjusted EBITDA when accounting for estimated tax benefits and run rate cost synergies.

The transaction is expected to be approximately $0.10-$0.15 accretive to adjusted EPS in fiscal 2027. Taco is a fast-growing business with a large addressable market and will significantly strengthen our Water Solutions segment. The acquisition establishes a new growth engine, enhancing exposure to energy efficiency, comfort cooling and HVAC, and data center infrastructure build-outs. While the real opportunity is top-line growth, we expect to generate approximately $30 million in run rate cost synergies over the next few years through Pentair's purchasing power and economies of scale. We will preserve the brand, expertise, and customer relationships that have made Taco so successful over the last 100 years. We plan to fund the transaction with a combination of cash on hand and committed bridge financing, which we intend to refinance through a permanent debt issuance.

At closing, we anticipate in the fourth quarter, we expect net leverage of approximately 2.4x. Supported by Pentair's strong cash flow generation, we expect to reduce net leverage to below 1.5x within two years following the close. Next, turn to slide 16, highlighting that Taco is a market-leading hydronics and Water Solutions provider. Taking a step back, this is a business and team we've long admired and have crossed paths with regularly. For over 100 years, Taco has built a premier brand and is a trusted market-leading provider of circulator pumps, valves, other pumps, tanks, heat exchangers, fabricated solutions, and advanced controls. It has done so by maintaining a culture built on innovation with a relentless focus on customer service.

Taco is primarily a North American business with an especially strong presence in the Eastern U.S., which we see particularly compelling growth opportunities in the multifamily residential market. It brings a large installed base of roughly 40 million units across commercial, industrial, and residential markets. What makes this base even more compelling is that Taco products are specified by engineers, which fuels their aftermarket business as customers require like-for-like replacement solutions. The company has a strong growth profile along with attractive profitability. Finally, turn to slide 17 as we highlight the increased scale and enhanced Water Solutions platform. As we have touched on, this transaction advances our strategic priorities and accelerates growth, strengthening our positions in key high growth end markets that are supported by secular water and sustainability trends.

The addition of Taco will increase the scale and relevance of our Water Solutions segment. Just as important, it will enhance the resiliency of Water Solutions as we expand Taco's installed base and accelerate the growth of our aftermarket business. The transaction will give us a new growth profile. Taco's commercial business is its fastest growing, driven primarily by its HVAC and data center exposure. Data centers represent approximately 15% of Taco's commercial and industrial revenue, with a significant pipeline of opportunities expected to support accelerating growth. On the residential side, Taco's business is heavily weighted towards multi-family, which is a faster-growing and more compelling area of the market than single family. The transaction will scale our business, enhance our growth profile, and allow us to unlock significant profitability and value creation as we bring our businesses together. We are excited to welcome Taco to the Pentair family.

I'd now like to turn the call over to the operator for Q&A, after which John will have a few closing remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Our first question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Hi, Brian.

Bob, nice to have you back for a little bit.

Thank you. All right. To level set a bit on Pool destocking, how regionalized is the reset?

Are there certain geographies driving most of the realignment? Similarly, is the destock concentrated in any product categories?

No and no. It's broad inventory, and it's broad on the product side. There's no particular subset that's being addressed in this one, in the destocking.

Okay. Understood. With regard to Taco's financial impact, you outlined some key near-term metrics and expectations. We know margin dilution at the outset, and then synergy capture helping to close that gap over time. I guess two related questions. One, what's the timeline to achieve the $30 million in synergies? Then longer term, is there any reason why the gap would not be fully closed to current fleet average margin? Is there something structural on the Taco side that may cap profitability below that range?

Yeah, I'll start, and I'll have Bob add some color. First of all, we want to honor the fact that this is a growth platform. This is a 100-year rich in history brand that has done a lot of great things to evolve its product line, and right now it is growing at a substantial rate. I do think there's some things in the Pentair business system that we think can add to the margin profile, mainly around sourcing and helping them drive operational leverage. At the end of the day, I think what we want to do is learn and really open up our eyes to understanding where the continued opportunities are, and we see probably more growth synergies in the long haul than we are focused on the operating synergies.

We're going to run it as a standalone unit, honoring its go-to-market capabilities and strategies, we'll have a shorter light touch on the integration. We see that integration period being somewhere between around three years to fully get those synergies out of the business.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Over the next two to three years, we'll be able to drive those cost synergies. Those are primarily related to the purchasing power of Pentair, the economies of scale. Some of those will accrue to us next year. Definitely feel good about the $30 million of cost synergies from a run rate perspective.

Got it. Appreciate the detail.

The next question comes from Andrew Krill with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Hi, thanks.

Good morning, everyone. Hi, Andrew.

Digging a little deeper on Pool and the 2027 growth prospects, could you put a finer point maybe on some expectations there? I think Bob said significant, robust. Does this mean it could be double digits, or will this be closer to the mid-single digits Investor Day target? Thank you. Yeah. It's important for us, first, to have dealt with the issue as quickly as possible in Q2.

Then as we think through the balance of the year to make sure that the channel inventory is right-sized for success in 2027. I would say that the math that I do, if you put together the guidance that we gave on Pool, it's going to be roughly a 1,250 type number for the year for Pool. The way that we start to build up the 2027 number is by looking at the inventory destock. If you say, conservatively, inventory destock around $200 million for the year, you can put yourself in a position where looking at a 1,450 type number next year for Pool. Now, a lot of things have to happen between Now, in terms of us assessing the 2027 Pool season.

When you're growing 1,450 off a 1,250 base, that's where we get the significant robust growth.

Great. That's very helpful. Related to that, just margins for Pool next year, any help there? Just given how big of a reset, the deleveraging this year, do you think you can be back solidly into the 30s next year? Are there going to be new headwinds from growth investments, et cetera? Just any help there would be great. Thank you. I'm targeting definitely keeping a three in front as the first digit, and I would start with a zero as the second digit for now.

I think we're going to utilize this opportunity to reestablish a growth mindset in Pool, make sure that we're investing appropriately in the growth opportunities, I do think that we've been afforded a small reset on that margin side, and I want to start with a growth orientation on driving a higher level of growth and getting the drop-throughs. Structurally, nothing's really changed. We would get the leverage on the way back up from all of the growth, and it's really about making sure that we take our higher growth profile that we have in Pool and invest in it. These are little things. This is about putting the dealer first.

It's about rallying around the seven regional sales leaders that we have today and making sure their voice is heard. It's also about making our product roadmap reflect our dealer councils and our dealer inputs. Those aren't huge investments, but it's a little bit here and there that I think I want to make sure that the organization feels that they have at their discretion, and that the channel knows that we're supporting them.

Thank you. The next question comes from Brett Linzey with Mizuho.

Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, all.

Just wanted to follow back up with Pool. Appreciate some of the destock details in the bridge there to 2027, I guess. Are there any other signals or KPIs that are giving you a little bit more confidence that things do in fact come back and the inventory levels are right-sized? Are you seeing any pull forward on orders already? I guess why does the 200 come back? Is there some just structural kind of reset on inventory levels in the system?

Yeah, I'll have Bob chime in here. Keep in mind the $1,250 that Bob is sharing with you is our ship-in number, consistent with all the previously reported numbers that we've had in our prior years. Because the inventory is really a doubling up of any inventory that was in the channel, and it comes out at a 2X factor to how it went in. The first $100 million is going to be serviced through existing inventory, and then you've also got the right size in inventory to get you back to where you need. We expect all of that to be cleared out by Q3, and then we head into next year with moderating prices, where our price is not as going to be as large as an increase as it was last year, which generated some of this pre-buy into the channel.

It's going to be a slight add as we build that inventory out of season. We have more clear lines of sight on the sell-through, which is our sales to dealers. The numbers that Bob is giving you, if you look at dealer sell-through today, you can actually take the ship-in, plus the change in inventory, and that's actually what we're selling to the dealer channel. With no growth next year, we get those types of growth rates that Bob is alluding to. We have higher expectations than that with the growth actions we're taking, and we would like to be back to that mid-single-digit sell-through growth that we set in the LRP, and we'll build that credibility and trajectory over the next several quarters. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Obviously early to be giving a 2027 view, but important from our perspective, because of the challenges we saw in Q2. That 1,450 type number does approximate sell-through that we've seen over the last couple of years, conservatively, you're saying another flattish sell-through year. When you think about maybe you get a little bit of price, maybe volume comes back with 5.4 million pools in the ground and pool equipment breaking. You'd like to think that there will be some volume growth next year. Again, we're not going to get ahead of ourselves. The number that I gave, the 1,450, feels like a reasonable starting point to plan for the year.

All right. Thanks. Just one on Flow and Water Solutions that delivered the strong ROS in the quarter. I guess as you strip out tariffs and look at the underlying results between the productivity actions and maybe some mix benefit from the product exits, what is the jumping off point from here? Is there any kind of one-time noise? Is this a sustainable run rate that we build off of into next year?

Yeah. Both Flow and Water Solutions are both performing well from a profitability perspective. They have a nice funnel of productivity improvement programs We believe ROS will continue to expand a number of complexity reduction plays, as well as revisiting wave 1 and wave 2 of our sourcing program.

We're optimistic that those businesses can continue to drive ROS improvement, but more importantly, drive top-line growth. Those businesses are well-positioned now. They've been investing for growth, and we should continue to see those businesses grow nicely. We're going to see some nice back half growth in both Water Solutions and in Flow. That's with a challenging international environment as well. We're optimistic both from a top line and a ROS expansion for both of those segments.

Appreciate all the detail. Thanks.

The next question comes from Andrew Buscaglia with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Andrew, your line may be muted. The next question comes from Mike Halloran with Baird. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone.

Morning. Morning, Mike. I want to ask a couple questions.

First, just on the Pool side, how quickly do you think some of these efforts can drive results? The commercial efforts, innovation, I know some of these you put in place earlier this year. How quickly can those drive results? John, is there an implication to pricing in your commentary about maybe being a little less price aggressive in the marketplace as you look to stabilize the business?

Yeah, when I talk about moderating pricing, I'll give you a range. I think it's somewhere in the 3%-5% range next year, and we haven't established those price increases yet. We think we're covering some levels of freight, and we've got some unique inflation on some of the core product lines, and we think we cover within that context. It's really a reference, Mike, that last year we had 7%, 8% price forecasted, and it really drove a pre-buy energy level across the entire channel to get ahead of those price increases. I think the prices that I'm talking about are more moderating, which doesn't generate that need to get ahead of it at the same rate of last year.

I think when we talk about investment and how long it's going to take, I think credibility with the dealers that we've got their back and that we're supporting them on a consistent basis, we've started that already. We've got to build that quarter by quarter by quarter over time. It's really in the way that we take our strategic advantages of our technical service reps and our field service support, and we make sure that they're backing them to get the product up and running and support them when it doesn't. It's also about making sure that we're understanding that the various regions that we participate in all have different competitive dynamics, and that we're competing effectively in that channel.

The primary place that we're acknowledging that we lost share is, we put pads in 10-15 years ago, our technology on the premium Pools we're building has evolved at a very rapid rate. We got to just make sure we have product that can go back and address a like-for-like replacement on the pads that we had established at a significant rate 10-15 years ago. When I put that into a context, Mike, we can make progress here in the back half of the year, I'm convinced. I think you're looking at a 6-18 month timeframe to get back to where we feel we should be, and to maintain the getting back share, winning share again, versus just defending our share.

Got it. Appreciate that. Was that helpful?

Oh, yeah. Super helpful. Just a balancing question here, 2.4 turns, I think is what the leverage is. Is the plan to let growth and EBITDA normalization in Pool, et cetera, inherently or naturally lower that leverage level over the next couple years? Meaning, are you willing to deploy capital for buybacks beyond that or for other things? Is there a targeted debt pay down plan concurrent?

We would run a similar play to what we ran with Manitowoc Ice. That was successful from a balanced capital allocation story, leaning in on debt pay down, we de-levered quickly. Our expectation is that we would utilize some amount of Pentair's free cash flow for debt pay down. That would be the main driver to get us from the 2.4x down to the 1.5, two years later. That still allows us room to continue to make the dividend payment and increase it and keep that 50-year streak alive to do share buybacks, at least from a dilution perspective, and then to have some optionality with other free cash flow that we have.

I would say we will prioritize the debt pay down, drive that leverage ratio down, and that's on the strength of the Pentair and the Taco free cash flow.

Thanks, gentlemen. Appreciate it. The next question comes from Nathan Jones with Stifel.

Please go ahead. Morning, everyone.

Morning. I guess I'll start with another one on the Pool inventory buildup.

I think you've kind of, I don't know, whether explicitly or implicitly talked about the big price increases coming into this year as responsible for the pre-buy. It doesn't seem like a lot of the other suppliers are seeing the destocking, at least to the same level that Pentair is. Can you just provide a little more color on how this inventory build got into the channel? I guess you guys gave guidance at the end of April. Did you have any indication that there was a big inventory destock coming there? I guess the question then is there some review of business processes that needs to be made so that you guys have better intelligence on what's actually going on with your dealers and in the market?

Yeah, I appreciate the question. I can't speak to our competitors. I've said this often. We had a double-digit growth expectation on the sell-through side, Nathan, as we headed into this year. That was made up about seven, eight points of price, we had about two to three points of volume, which felt normal. We did our channel checks, we talked to our dealers, people were encouraged and optimistic that we would enter the year and we would see that type of growth rate. A lot of things happened throughout the first quarter. We had a war start in the Middle East. We saw gasoline spike. We saw interest rates that actually weren't declining, but actually went up. We did our sell-through checks in Q1, we did actually okay.

It wasn't a great sell-through period, didn't hit that double digit, but it was mid-single digit type of growth. What happened in Q2 is we saw that there might have been some pull ahead from the channel, from Q2 into Q1, we also noticed that there was a fair amount of rebates to dealers and encouragement of dealers to buy product. We learned that we weren't going to hit those sell-through rates, which is where we started to soften the guide in the April timeframe. We came out with a lower Pool forecast, if you recall, we had a little bit of the inventory correction in our Q3 numbers.

It became apparent that we were going to be in an excess inventory situation in Q2, we worked with the channel to actively try to right size everything so that we could get it all behind us by the end of Q3, begin to get back to a sellout mentality next year. Just make sure that inventory coming in equals the inventory that's going out. It's that simple. I can't speak for the competition. These numbers get large because when you have a large business, just a little bit of percentage miss on the way up doubles the impact on the way down.

Usually you'll live with a little bit of excess inventory in the channel, but I think this one got to the point where we're just uncomfortable that it would affect our long-term growth rates, and we would be out trying to incentivize the channel differently to get beyond where the inventory levels are. I'm comfortable with what we did. I think as far as going forward, we have the ability to measure sell-through and sell-in across all the regions, and just keeping an eye on making sure that we understand what's going into the channel, what's going out of the channel. It'll be different within a full year by quarter because there's seasonality in the business, but it's really easy to get your head around that, Nathan.

Thanks for that. On Taco, you're talking here in the slide deck about mid teens 2026 revenue growth. Can you put that in a bit of context with where it's been historically, what the expectations for that are going forward? I assume the revenue from data centers is a big driver of the growth in there. If you could just parse that out, maybe what the growth rate is ex the data center growth. Thanks. I'll let Bob handle a piece of this, but I do want to acknowledge that our plumbing business exposure never included the HVAC channel.

Those of you that follow the HVAC channel, it's always been a really good spot to service plumbers into. That is historically what Taco's really good at, is the number 1 or number 2 brand in the climate and hydronic and HVAC space. They play in some really good core regions where they take advantage of multi-unit housing as well, where we have not historically played. Their growth rate has always been mid to high single digit-ish kind of range. Obviously, when you start adding data centers onto that, you get this ramp and this incremental growth related to those data centers. Bob? They're really taking advantage of some fast-growing markets.

We're excited with the fact that we will add roughly $10 billion of addressable market to Pentair. Taco's been taking advantage of that addressable market. Historically, they've been a high single digit grower. They're having nice growth this year as they expand into data centers, including expanding their product offerings. The commercial side of their business overall is doing well. They're right in the sweet spot of efficiency plays, sustainability plays. The residential business is doing well because of the focus on multi-family units. It's really across the board growth. They're building a nice funnel, and we're excited about not only Taco's growth, but being able to add what Pentair has to offer. They sell primarily through manufacturing reps. We sell through distribution. There's a nice cross-sell opportunity there. Overall, excited about the business.

Again, it will be a standalone business unit within the Water Solutions segment.

Thanks for taking the questions.

The next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Morning, Deane.

Hi, Deane. Hey, Bob, welcome back, and I do believe you lead the league now in the most comebacks and retirements.

Is that true? I don't know if I lead, but I do like coming back.

Again, this is such a great company, so excited to be back.

Yeah. Pentair is fortunate to have you ready to step back in. We really appreciate that. Hey, look, on the Taco deal, we know this brand. It's a top brand, great aftermarket. Full disclosure, our HVAC in my home has all Taco mixing valves. I know the business from the user standpoint as well. This feels a lot like the Manitowoc deal, where you're buying a top brand with really good aftermarket, and you're going to run it like its own platform. Maybe, is that right? Can you expand a bit on where there are adjacencies where you can build out this platform further? I don't like to use the word plumbing, but just the idea here on some of the fluid handling side. Maybe we can start there. Thanks. Deane, thank you for the question.

By the way, congratulations on your news as well. I will say that without a doubt, we plan to run it and learn from the Manitowoc way. We expect that it's a proud, rich heritage as a brand. The Taco brand has a lot to be proud of. It's fourth-generation business, and we are going to run it as a standalone entity and take the Manitowoc playbook in that regard. I want to focus the potential synergies on the fact that they participate in the mechanical side of data centers, in a meaningful way. We're starting to enter into the data center markets with a large HVAC offering, which takes you to the bigger side of the chilling and cooling aspects with our Water Solutions.

I think that's our biggest meaningful synergy that we see that would be worth focusing on, is introducing each other to the products and making sure that we can share those leads and begin to work together to support that opportunity. Again, to the plumbing channel, just making sure we're expanding the line card and making sure that we give our plumbers access to their products and that their plumbers have access to our products. We think those are meaningful synergies, both.

Great. Just a follow-up on the Pool side. One of the questions that we get is, has there been any fallout from all of the 80-20 kind of disruptions on the customer side? As you switch someone from direct sales to distribution, there can be some relationship disruption. That question has come up. Is there any validity or applicability to this, for you guys in your situation?

The answer, Deane, is yes. It's not 80-20 as a tool. It's the way you implement 80-20. I think we made some assumptions on some of the smaller distributors, buying groups, and small dealers that are independent and don't necessarily buy from the two largest distributors. Those actions did create disruptions and some of the lost share that we had alluded to in the aftermarket side of our business. We're actively pursuing getting that back and reestablishing those relationships. They're long-term relationships, and we made some decisions that need to be reversed. Again, I won't blame that on the 80-20 tool. I'll acknowledge that we didn't implement the tool with the right assumptions and the right industry knowledge that we should have utilized.

Great. I really appreciate the candor there, and I also appreciate all the support and insight you and the team have provided me over the years, and I wish you best of luck. Thank you. Best luck to you, Deane.

The next question comes from Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Great. Thank you.

Bob, great to have you back. Maybe Dean can actually start rivaling you for all the comebacks here, never say never, but, Bob, good to see you back.

Thanks, mate. We've caught a lot of grounds, John.

It sounds like you've lost most ground with the smaller distributors, smaller contractors. With the larger players, you feel like you're in good shape, or do you think there's more work to do there? This new growth mindset in Pool, is there anything on a product side, or in terms of customer targeting? I'm thinking about some of the larger Pool builders where you need to maybe reestablish a presence.

I'll address that real quickly, too. We segment the market. We have premium large builders. Think of those as your regional large, making the multi-body pools, highly innovative, highly technologically advanced. I think we still feel like our product positioning and our dealer positioning there is where it needs to be. We continue to serve those dealers. We have not historically played in larger pool builders that serve the mid-tier of the market. These would be the more mass-produced homes that have more single-body pools. It's a segment of the market that's actually growing faster right now than the premium Pool builds. Price-conscious buyers, good enough equipment. It's one that we have to explore, do we want to participate or not. We don't currently serve the top 20 builders in that space.

We're looking at the economics of entering that space and understanding what that aftermarket service tail would be. Where I'm candidly saying where we've got to get better is making sure that we've got product that replaces our existing product in a very simple service user-friendly way. In a lot of cases, those aren't the installers or builders that place that product that are now servicing those pools. We've got to make it easier for that service channel to be able to have a product that replaces our product. It's not a long length of time. We do have product availability today. We just need to make people aware of it. We need to make sure it's being focused on the areas that can recapture and regain our share.

Long term, I think our innovation has to be more iterative and has to be easy to use, easy to install, easy to sell. I think we've gotten into a little bit more breakthrough thinking, which is a big leap for the channel. I think we're going to bring that product roadmaps into a more every single year, having a slight improvement versus having these more radical improvements in the product designs.

John, that's great color. Good luck with that transition. Just a quick clarification on the margin question. You indicated something close to the 30% is where you see the business maybe trending longer term. Do you think that's a good number for 2027, or do you think this transition period means it could have a 2 handle on margins next year?

No, I think there's no need to put a two in front of it. Right now, before this reset, we were tickling mid-30s. I think if you look at the things we want to do, we want to build our brand. We want to put the brand in front of consumers in a way where they know where Pentair Pool is. When they Google, our dealers are supported by a brand, and we want to make that a localized regional approach. We want to do a little bit more demand generation to bring leads to our core dealers to service pools. I see some early investment there, and I want to set this up as we're recovering in those low 30 ranges as a more systemic place that I think we can be in Pool. This is still a rule of 40 business, right?

You can get to 30 plus 10% growth. You could be at 33 with 7% growth. That's the way I'm looking at it, and I think there's plenty of room to deliver income growth and a lot of value by having more of an emphasis on the top line here.

That's great. Thanks, John. The next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup.

Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, everyone.

Bob, welcome back. Hi, Andy.

John, how difficult do you think it is to pivot from this sort of 80-20 mindset in Pool to this maybe more innovation-based focus? I think you mentioned replacing products, but maybe some examples of where you're going to lean in to drive the growth. Is it more on the automation side? Is it more in specific products where you've lost share? How do you think about that?

No, stepping back, we've always been historically a customer-led, sales-led organization. When we experienced some of the supply chain disruptions during COVID, we had to solve more of the issues more centrally. I think we stopped listening at the rate that we needed to at the localized dealer needs and some of the segmentation. This is not going to be hard to get back to, but I'm not going to suggest it's immediate, right? We got to go back, and we've got to commit to supporting our dealers and making sure they recognize that they have that support behind them. Our salespeople have to have the empowerment to be able to say yes to what that dealer needs. It sounds simple. We also have to support them.

It's going to be progress here already within the quarter and ultimately throughout the back of the year and making sure that consistency of voice is supported in 2027, 2028, and beyond.

Helpful. Maybe I can ask you guys about Flow in general. For mid to high single-digit growth through the year, I think Hydra-Stop is doing well, as you said. Core sales down 1%. Talk about the different businesses, John or Bob, and like CapEx doing reasonably well, but anything sort of slowing you down there?

Nothing really slowing us down in line with expectation, I would say. If anything, perhaps a headwind in regions in Europe, as an example, that should come back once the economy and overall global conditions improve. Overall, it's more a macroeconomic that drove some of the core sales growth in the second quarter, but that rebounds quickly. We're optimistic that we can drive that high single-digit growth in the back half of the year. Flow performing well continued to be focused on ROS expansion. Overall, nothing particular with any of the different business units within Flow. More just a geographic challenge at this point in time.

Appreciate all the color. The next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

Please go ahead. Hey, guys, this is Tyler Bisson for Brian.

Thanks for taking our questions. Wanted to dig into the Flow segment. Sales were up 5%. You called out some key order wins in commercial buildings, data centers, and desalination end markets. Can you provide some more details on these order wins? Are you seeing any market share gains here, and is this business performing a little better than expected?

It really reflects. We talk about the driving productivity improvements, but we do reinvest some of those savings back into growth initiatives. The work that we're doing around data centers is a reflection of some of the investments that we've made, either in the channel or with the products themselves. Those were nice wins in the quarter that will drive revenue growth in future quarters. We like the breadth of the portfolio within Flow right now, and that's what's giving us confidence that we can drive that type of growth. You'll remember, Flow used to be a low single digit grower growing in line with GDP. We now believe we can do better than that.

Thank you. Just wanted to dig back into the Pool and can you guys provide some more details on the plans you outlined to regain aftermarket share going forward? What's some of the low-hanging fruit or more near-term opportunities, and what do you see as more medium-term impacts?

The low-hanging fruit in the short term is just making sure that the industry understands our like-for-like replacements. Maybe the name of the brand is slightly different. For instance, IF2 is on the pads. It was one of the best pumps ever invented. Making sure people know that the WhisperFlo is a like-for-like replacement that can give the customer what they need. What we were trying to do is promote our IF3, which has full automation baked into it and can allow you to have app-based capability and control of the pad. That's great for the person who actually wants that offering, but we got to make sure if that individual doesn't prefer that offering, that there's an alternative that is ours. That's as simple as I can make it for now. I want to thank you for joining us today.

In closing, I'd like to reinforce some key takeaways on slide 18. We have taken actions to address near-term Pool dynamics while maintaining long-term growth priorities, and we anticipate robust growth in 2027. Flow and Water Solutions remain on track and continue to perform in line with our expectations. Our acquisition of Taco expands our suite of innovative Water Solutions, strengthening our position in high-growth end markets and expanding our channel network and aftermarket exposure. This transaction will create an attractive and diversified growth platform. We are confident that our focused water strategy and disciplined execution will further strengthen the business, enhance operational efficiency, and position us to deliver long-term growth, profitability, and value creation for customers and shareholders. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation.