Veralto Corporation Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Hello, my name is Nikki, and I will be your conference operator this morning. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Veralto Corporation's second quarter 2026 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then the number two on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Ryan Taylor, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Taylor, you may begin your conference.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call. With me today are Jennifer Honeycutt, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sameer Ralhan, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is simultaneously being webcast. A replay of the webcast will be available in the investor section of our website later today under the heading Events and Presentations. A replay of this call will be available until August 7th. Yesterday, we issued our second quarter 2026 earnings news release, earnings presentation, prepared remarks and supplemental materials, including information required by the SEC relating to adjusted or non-GAAP financial measures. These materials are also available on the investor section of our website, www.veralto.com, under the heading Quarterly Earnings. Reconciliations of all non-GAAP measures are also provided in the appendix of the webcast slides. Unless otherwise noted, all references to variances are on a year-over-year basis.

During the call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jennifer.

Thanks, Ryan. I want to start by thanking our 17,000 associates for their efforts in delivering an excellent second quarter. In Q2, total sales grew 7.6% year-over-year. Adjusted EPS increased 19.4%, and we generated robust free cash flow of $328 million. We delivered 4.2% core sales growth, led by Water Quality at 5.7% and PQI at 2%. As expected, core sales growth in both segments accelerated sequentially from Q1 to Q2. We expect year-over-year core sales growth to continue accelerating in the second half to approximately 5%-6%. Based on our Q2 performance and momentum across the portfolio, we raised our full year adjusted EPS guidance to $4.35 to $4.43 per share, representing 12%-14% growth year-over-year. We continue to advance long-term value creation through strategic bolt-on acquisitions, including last week's acquisition of Alfaa UV, an India-based leader in UV water treatment solutions.

I'm excited to welcome our new associates from Alfaa UV to Veralto. We also continue to opportunistically repurchase our shares. So far this year, we have repurchased over 5 million shares for approximately $480 million, or just over 2% of the company. Overall, I'm proud of our team for their outstanding execution through the first half of the year and focus on our critical few: accelerating growth, optimizing cost, and executing disciplined capital allocation. Looking ahead, with a strong balance sheet and robust cash generation, we remain focused on compounding long-term shareholder value through high quality growth, VES-driven execution, and disciplined capital allocation. That concludes my prepared remarks, and at this time, we're happy to take your questions.

Thank you. At this time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. In the interest of time, please limit it to one question and one follow-up question. We will take our first question from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Deane. Hey. We continue to really like this highly efficient release of your prepared remarks in a really crazy busy earning season.

It's just such a great innovation. Thank you for doing that again. It's a best practice as far as we're concerned. My first question, can we start with the core revenue guidance that's implied, and you referenced it here this morning, the impressive 5%-6% for the second half. Maybe unpack the drivers and your degree of confidence in this acceleration. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for the question, Deane.

It's great to have you leading off today. Before answering your question, I just want to say that we are grateful for your decades of thoughtful analysis within both water and industrial markets. I think all the way back to when Danaher acquired Hach and Videojet, where I was working at Hach at the time, when we had our investor conference out there, I think you were one of the first analysts that I met. We wish you all the best in your next chapter.

Thank you, Jennifer. Look, it's been a great run, I appreciate all the support and insight you and the team have provided me over the years. Thank you for those comments. I still have my questions. Thank you. Yes. We're getting to your question right now.

Obviously, we saw some sequential acceleration, between Q1 and Q2. We feel really good about the momentum coming out of the first half of the year and the durability of the growth drivers here in the second half. I'll just cite two key drivers in each segment. I think in water, our industrial market demand continues to be strong, and this is really on the back of the data center demand and the associated ecosystem there, including power, mining, and semiconductor. For water, we've got ongoing scarcity, clearly exacerbated by climate change, which is propelling water recycling and reuse, giving us good opportunity to sell solutions into that space. For PQI, we continue to see strong demand for digital workflow solutions as CPG brands look to improve product compliance, traceability, and time to market.

We see ongoing steady demand for our marking and coding solutions, clearly supported as well by easier comps in the fourth quarter. Based on where the funnels were at the end of Q2, we feel really good about the momentum and confident in the second half guide for core sales growth.

Maybe, Dean, I'll just add one more point. As you look at the second half core growth of 5%-6%, we expect it to be led by volume, with pricing moderating slightly but still be at or slightly above the high end of the range. This will be a volume story in the second half of the year.

Great to hear all of that. Just a second question on capital allocation. It's been really nice to see the balanced approach here. You've been opportunistic on some bolt-on acquisitions and the buybacks coming through. Sameer, can you just give us a sense of how you're looking at these opportunities? What does the funnel look like? You've made some pretty obvious accretive deals here. What's that pipeline look like? In the meanwhile, can you do more buybacks? Thank you. Thanks, Dean, for that question.

Yeah. As you look at the capital allocation from a framework, Dean, there's really no change. Our first bias is, of course, towards M&A to create long-term value, we will be opportunistic on the buyback side. If the valuation stays, there's a disconnect between the free cash flow generation of the company and the public market value. We will be out in the market from a share buyback perspective, otherwise, from M&A side, the funnels are pretty good, being on both sides of the house, we in active cultivations and pretty actively looking at things. As you know, M&A is episodic, we'll stay patient and disciplined.

Great. Again, thank you for your kind words, and I wish you all continued success.

Thank you, Deane. Thanks, Deane.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Davis with Melius Research. Please go ahead. Good morning, everybody.

Jennifer, Samir, Ryan. Good morning, Scott.

I guess with Deane leaving, I'm going to have to actually learn what the water business is finally. I used to just call him if I needed help. Maybe he'll be kind enough to give me his home number, and I'll just call him in future quarters. Anyways, he will be missed by us as well. He was a great colleague and friend. Anyways, guys, getting back to business. You talked a little bit about the opportunity around data center, power gen, semi-fab, I think you threw mining in there, too. Is there any way you can kind of size that if you combine those or even help us understand anything about really how we can think about the TAM in those business or the opportunities, or how big of a potential tailwind that may be to your top line in industrial water treatment?

Scott. As you look at overall demand and the revenues that we're getting from the data centers and the associated ecosystem, it's still a small number on the high-tech side, but overall, from a ChemTreat perspective, it's becoming pretty interesting as we move forward. At a Veralto level, it's still a little small number at this point. We've been not public with that number yet.

You could think of ChemTreat solutions in there to be strong double-digit growth, right? That team has been firing on all cylinders. It is still a smaller part of our overall business, but continues to be a really good grower, along with some other sort of industrial reshoring and nearshoring activities. We're seeing lift kind of across the board.

Okay. Fair enough. You guys in past quarters kind of talked about this cost-out plan. Given the recovery you're seeing in some of your markets, maybe you can update us on what you're planning on doing there and the timing and such.

Yeah. The program is on track, Scott. We are well on our way. We've started executing some things. Impact, as far as the savings are concerned in this year, we're going to see a very small lift maybe in Q4 that's baked into the guide. It's a very small number. We're talking a few millions at this point. The biggest benefit we'll see is in 2027. Overall, there's no change as far as if you're referring to any lift in the business and is that impacting the cost optimization program. Absolutely not. We're fully committed and progressing well.

Okay. Best of luck. I appreciate it.

Thanks. Thanks, Scott. Thank you.

We will move next with Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research. Please go ahead. Hey, thanks.

Good morning, everyone. Maybe just two quick ones from me. First, on the volume pickup that you expect in the back half, do you see that being led by equipment or consumables? Can you maybe unpack that a little bit?

It's a combination of both, Jeff. On the Water Quality side, it's going to be pretty balanced across both sides. PQI side is pretty interesting. If you look at the PQI side, really there are three building blocks. The first one is going to be driven by the digital workflow solutions. Over there, as you know, we book, and it's based on the ACVs of the contracts that we have been booking. We have pretty good solid visibility into the second half recovery in the digital workflow solutions. Marking and coding continues to be very strong. The year-over-year comp is going to look very good as you're going to look at the Q4 impact last year. Then on the color validation and certification instrumentation side, we started seeing the funnels improving and the velocity improving over there as well.

We should start seeing an uplift in the second half of the year. When you look at both on the PQI side and the Water Quality side, it's pretty broad-based. It's not tied to any product line.

When you look at your price capture, it actually is very solid, in my opinion, for a business that's not metals intensive and I don't think had a lot of tariff-related pressure. Is that primarily reflective of price capture in consumables, or how are you doing on the equipment side in terms of getting some incremental price?

Yeah. Our philosophy is every product has to earn the right to be in the portfolio. We take a balanced approach, and we've been surgical about where and how, and how much we increase price. Obviously, we look to cover inflationary impact of tariffs, et cetera. You see balanced price read through on both consumables and equipment. It's a little bit higher on consumables given the captive nature of those products.

Right. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Halloran with Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi. Morning, everyone. Morning, Mike.

Great, thanks. Just can we talk a little bit about back half margin progression, what the assumptions are, and any help you can give by segment and how that tracks through the quarters?

Yeah, Mike. You're going to look at the margin side, we'll see a sequential improvement on the margin, right? In the guidance, we kind of laid that out, that we should expect roughly 25 basis points of margin expansion into Q3, and for the full year, it's going to be 25-50 basis points. Q4, we're going to see a nice margin uplift, especially in the PQI side because that's where we saw some of the impact from on the fixed cost absorption side and the line moves of duplicate production lines that we had on the marking and coding side. Think about margin expansions to roughly 25 basis points in Q3, and for the full year, 25-50 basis points. Q4 will be north of 50 basis points, as you can think.

Any nuance by segment there?

Q4 will be largely led by PQI, on the water side, it's going to be steady from what we have seen so far.

Thank you. Just on the PQI side of things, talk about what you're seeing on the equipment side and that headwind abating on the packaging and color side into the back half of the year, maybe touch on what you're seeing on the workflow solutions that gives you the confidence in the acceleration and the frankly secular opportunity you're seeing on that side.

We've got a decent ramp in PQI here in the second half. It's really driven by three things. The first is we're seeing strong demand in bookings of our digital workflow solutions with the integration of Esko, TraceGains, and now GlobalVision. We also see steady demand in marking and coding that's bolstered by an easier comp in Q4. We do see recovery in our packaging and color equipment. We exited Q2 with better funnels and stronger service growth, we've got good confidence in kind of the second half acceleration of core growth there. We also have a number of new product launches that have come to market here for PQI as a function of our increased investment at the time of spend. Flywheel of innovation is accelerating. We've got a number of good innovations coming to market.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning.

Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just a quick one on the pricing side. I think, Sameer, you'd said back half you're not assuming much in terms of further price acceleration. I guess, is that a function of the comps are a bit tougher, or is that a function of you just don't see the need for it at this point, just given that costs may have stabilized? I guess, how should we be thinking about pricing as we kind of progress through the rest of the year?

Yeah. Thanks, John, for that question. First of all, I think on the pricing, we expect it to be pretty strong, right? Even in the second half, we should expect the pricing to be slightly above the high end of the range. Overall, from an absolute basis, we still expect it to be pretty good. As far as the moderation point that I said earlier from Q2 to Q3 and Q4, really, John, that is a comp. It's a lapping up. As you know, we introduced price increases last year when the tariffs started happening, then we had our regular annual price increases in as well. In the first half of the year, we have seen impact of both. As we get into Q3, we'll get back to our sort of normal price increases.

Got it. Okay. Fair enough. Then maybe just to dig a little bit deeper into the data center opportunities and how you're targeting that. I know we saw earlier, I guess, in the second quarter, there was a new partnership with Dow and some of their chemical solutions for the data center opportunities. Should we be expecting further types of partnerships, and how are you looking to grow out that business? What are the avenues that you can take? Also, I guess, can you speak to potential M&A opportunities that you might see that help further target that market for you? Thanks. Great question, John. We've continued to engage in partnerships across the enterprise.

We're excited about our partnership with Dow to help serve liquid cooling applications and data centers. This is normal course of business for us as we look to extend our value into these high-growth areas. Relative to other applications and so on, look, we can't talk about anything specifically that's in the funnel. We like how we're positioned here, and as far as M&A and partnerships are concerned, we're going to look to our power alley of serving the operating environment of the customer's workflow, where there's a good sticky razor blade kind of relationship. We are the right custodian to deliver the kind of value that those customers want. I think we're well-positioned here. We're looking at lots of things.

You'll know when we know as far as any assets that come into the portfolio as a function of that.

Got it. Thanks very much for the color.

Thanks, John. You bet. Thank you.

We will move next with Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please go ahead. Morning, everyone.

Good morning, Nathan. I guess I'll start in the packaging color side of the business.

You talked about Esko, TraceGains, and Global and the impact that they're having together. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how you're leveraging each one in order to generate better sales, and how that factors into the outlook in the second half? You mentioned in your scripts environmental monitoring workflows, which I think plays into In-Situ and OTT, and maybe how they'd fit together to drive additional sales as well. Maybe just sales synergies around the acquisitions, I guess, is the short way to ask it.

We continue to stitch together assets here that deliver more value to the consumer product goods digital workflow. Everything from sort of package design integrity through compliance, regulatory compliance, ingredient traceability, checking for accuracy of the print that's actually rendered on the package. All of those things are critical workflows for brand owners. To the extent that they can be seamlessly integrated is where the real value is derived. In fact, at our most recent trade show, Esko World, was able to demonstrate packaging design changes that normally span months into weeks and in some cases, down to a few days. There's real value in that workflow just in terms of stitching those things together. Bear in mind that GlobalVision has been a longstanding partner of Esko, and so the integration of those solutions is pretty straightforward.

TraceGains is also providing real value to this workflow in terms of ingredient traceability, regulatory changes, and making sure that products are fit for purpose and meet all the regulatory affairs and compliance requirements. Yes, we are seeing good value there. We see good brand uptake of those solutions, and we see that accelerating here in the back half of the year. Relative to your question in the environmental workflows, yes, we are speaking to the combination of In-Situ and our OTT products. As we had mentioned previously, the two of those really fit together like LEGO. One is strong in analytical quantity, one is strong in analytical quality. Quantity and quantity are both covered in those environmental workflows, and they provide important intelligence here for the integrity of water as it comes into the influent into water treatment plants.

Knowing what is coming, how much is coming, whether it's clean or dirty, are all critical factors, particularly as you get more environmental aberrations, severe weather events and so on. Integration is progressing well there and we're liking what we're seeing.

Maybe just one thing on the environmental side, Nathan, I'll add is, as you kind of look at the synergy numbers that we kind of talked about on the commercial side when we announced the deal. Team is early days, but the team is executing phenomenally well, and we are well ahead on the commercial synergy side numbers wise.

Thanks for that. Excuse me. Thanks for that. I guess the follow-up question, just a housekeeping one, I guess, around margins. You had the IEEPA tariff refunds in each segment. Can you talk about what the margin expansion was ex the IEEPA refunds? I think the guidance contains no more IEEPA refunds in it. Any chances that there will be more coming ahead? Thanks. Thanks, Nathan, for the question.

As you look at the refund side, effectively, we got roughly $16 million, $10-ish was in PQI, $6 million in Water Quality. Overall impact of the tariff refunds on the margin expansion on the adjusted OP was 110 basis points. Excluding that, the margin effectively came in pretty much in line with the guidance, Nathan, overall as a company and for each segment as well. Really no surprises on the margin side. As far as the future goes in the second half of the year, you're absolutely right. We have not included any further benefit from tariff refunds in the second half. Based on the filings that we have done, look, we can have another $0.02 per share kind of an impact benefit.

The timing is highly uncertain, so we've not added that to our guidance for the second half.

Thanks for taking the questions.

Thanks, Nathan. Thank you. We will move next with Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup.

Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Andy. Jennifer, can you give us a little more color on how to think about the mix of Water Quality moving forward?

For instance, how big is your overall industrial exposure at this point? Is it getting as large as your municipal exposure? It looks like you're saying that industrial end markets are growing at least in the high single digits. It seems like it's more broad-based growth outside of data centers. Can you talk about the durability of that growth moving forward?

Yeah. We're really pleased with our industrial growth. If you look at our overall water business, about 50% of our water revenue comes from industrial applications. It's really quite significant. Most of that industrial revenue comes from North America, we're really seeing the benefits not only of these discrete vertical markets like data centers and the feeder industries there, but also in the nearshoring and the reshoring efforts. We see growth being catalyzed here by strength in those industrial markets. That said, we've got plenty of analytical instrumentation and products and services that go into that space. The municipal markets are also holding up well. Right? As a reminder, 60% of our revenue is recurring revenue.

We sit in the operating side of the customer's plant where they're looking to make sure that they insulate themselves from any points of failure along their value chain there. Being integral to the operating environment, making sure that we help customers avoid critical points of failure allows us to continue to see really sticky business there on the municipal side. The other 40% really is revenue associated with continuing to upgrade equipment and deploy new technologies and so on. I think it's really balanced across the portfolio. Certainly, there's a higher driver of growth coming from our industrial markets, but muni's holding up really well as well.

Jennifer, maybe I could double click on the muni markets because obviously I'm sure you get asked the question a lot. I think you've called it steady. You reminded us of the recurring growth. Can you continue to grow in that business, you think over the next several quarters, years? I do hear municipalities worried about tight budgets. Can you do that? Can you continue to grow in a more tight budgeting environment?

Yeah. The way to think about this is the budgets for operating a water plant are not elective. Right? Water plants have to continue to operate, treat their water because communities and industry is relying on that water. We don't see real aberrations or fluctuations in federal funding. Obviously, utilities, municipalities are going to be judicious with their spend, but we absolutely believe that we can continue to grow, and grow at mid-single digits or better in this space. Bear in mind with new technologies, more efficient ways of running plants, more software deployed to get intelligence out of how well that system is running. Those are all opportunities for continued growth.

Yeah. As you're going to think about our muni business, definitely on the analytics side is where you see the consumable side. Let's not forget, on the Trojan side, we have pretty nice exposure on the muni through our Trojan business. The bid activity that you see in the wastewater side, especially at the munis, is pretty solid. Overall demand, as you're going to think in the growth of our muni business, you should look at both angles, both one from the analytics side, from the Hach side, at the same time from a Trojan business as well, which has been growing pretty nicely.

Appreciate all the color, guys.

Thank you. Thanks, Andy. Thank you.

We will move next with Ryan Connors with Northcoast Research. Please go ahead. Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Wanted to talk about ChemTreat a little bit. You've talked about pricing various points in the call, but it looked like we were going to get some relief there in terms of input cost headwinds. Oil prices had come down. Seems like that volatility has picked back up. Can you just talk in more detail about the specific price cost dynamics in ChemTreat? I know you mentioned the team's firing on all cylinders from a top-line perspective, but can you talk about price cost and margins with the volatile raw materials here in ChemTreat?

Yeah, Ryan. If you're going to think about the ChemTreat side, you're absolutely right. Look, in ChemTreat, we've been working very closely with our customers, given some of the chemical inputs, to see how we can make sure we can preserve the margins and get the right value for the solution that we deliver to the customers. Overall, as you're going to think about in that business, the dynamic, yes, some of the pass-through can move with the pricing. At this point, frankly, we have not seen any sort of a change as yet. Our goal is to make sure when the input side is so volatile, we are preserving the dollar margin. That's one of the biggest focus for us as we're going to think about. The discussions with customers that the ChemTreat is having is pretty real time.

We've got phenomenal digital solutions to make sure our sales teams are fully armed to have those discussions.

Got it. Thank you. Then one more on the PQI side, just curious whether We've had this really high-profile recall situation with the Cyclospora infections with the lettuce outbreak. Just curious whether for your teams there, whether that type of situation creates an uptick in interest and selling opportunity for people to get this when something like that is front page news like that, whether that's kind of an opportunity for a bit of an uptick in interest and opportunity.

Yeah. Great question. The answer is absolutely. While Cyclospora is the latest public health risk, any kind of bacterial or parasitic outbreak is not actually uncommon. You can go back to E. coli in peanut butter, botulism in infant formula. These kinds of episodes happen. Our PQI franchise is ideally positioned with Esko, TraceGains, and GlobalVision providing integrated workflows to help with regulatory compliance, ingredient traceability, and packaging accuracy, while our coding and marking businesses aid in the date, lot code, and distribution traceability. It's an end-to-end solution, really, for brand owners to ensure that they have product that is safe for public consumption. Together, our portfolio of solutions really provides that source-to-shelf intelligence to make sure that brand owners can protect public health.

Understood. Thanks for your time.

Thanks, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Andrew Krill with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks.

Morning, everyone. Could you give us an update on what you're seeing on electronics inflation, including memory, with all of the demand on those products from data centers? Is there anything very unusual from a cost perspective or availability perspective? Can you remind us which products are most exposed to those in Veralto? Thanks. No, thanks, Andrew. Great question.

Our exposure in the electronics scene really comes through our instruments where we do use memory, we do use boards. These costs overall, when you kind of step back, Andrew, are pretty small fraction of the COGS. We're definitely seeing high prices just like everybody else in the industry and frankly, broader economy. The impact at the Veralto level at this point is non-material. From our perspective, look, the procurement teams are working pretty actively. I wouldn't say that at this point we have had any issues of sourcing. It's a matter of pricing. It's a small number that we're able to pass through.

At the same time, look, this is where from the R&D team's perspective, they are looking at things as well as to how we can design and optimize things in a higher memory or higher semiconductor price environment as well. Those actions are helping mitigate the impact as well. It's not a material impact at the Veralto level is the punchline.

Okay. Great. Very helpful. Switching gears, the Alfaa UV deal I think didn't get a ton of airtime. Maybe can you just give us some more on the growth rates? I believe the prepared remarks said double-digit growth this year. Is that sustainable? Maybe any help on margins now and where they could go as you use VES and integrate the company? Thanks. Yeah. We're really happy to welcome Alfaa UV into the portfolio.

This is a highly synergistic addition to our Trojan business, which continues to expand our footprint globally. Alfaa itself has a strong portfolio of competitive fit-for-purpose solutions, along with an established commercial presence in India. You can think about this as being a similar type of transaction relative to AQUAFIDES, which is the UV business we acquired in Europe, and part and parcel to the geographic expansion that Trojan is doing. I think Alfaa also gives us an opportunity to expand in other high-growth markets with their portfolio. Trojan, AQUAFIDES, and Alfaa all sort of fit together nicely to cover a variety of UV treatment applications, high flow, low flow, different kinds of water matrices and so on. Again, small business in India, but a double-digit grower, we do believe that that's sustainable going forward.

Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Andrew.

Thank you. We will move next with Andrew Buscaglia with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Andrew. You guys sound rather positive, I think on the past acquisitions you've made.

I know that you paid some rich multiples for them, and people are looking for signs of synergies coming through. Would you say that they are tracking ahead of your expectation in terms of either growth or synergies? Could you just give us a little more color on that, please?

Yeah. We've been really pleased with the deals that we've brought into Veralto since spin, and I think what you see is we've accelerated in terms of deal volume, both in number and overall relative size. It's been balanced between PQI and water. We really like the spaces that we're in with both of those segments. I would say, the vast majority of these deals have provided near-term synergies around sales acceleration and combining product portfolios, going to market with joint sales teams, and the like. We certainly, at least to date, have really focused on accelerating our overall growth profile, and these deals are doing exactly that. There is opportunity, clearly, for ongoing cost optimization, and getting more margin out of these different assets.

That's all baked into integration plans and transition going forward, but we're really pleased with what we've seen in the top-line growth acceleration.

Andrew, you're seeing that in the guidance, right? In the confidence that we have in the second half and then as we're going to move forward. Part of that is driven by the growth profile of the transactions that we've done.

Yeah. Exactly. That's fair enough. Thank you. I know everything's kind of picked over at this point, so I wanted to ask a little more of a higher-level question. I get questions on your data center exposure and Water Quality, but I think there could be an interesting AI angle in PQI. I'm wondering if you see AI changing demand for things like inspection and marking and coding. We're seeing this in some other adjacent industries I cover as well. What's your take at this point on AI influencing PQI?

Yeah, you're seeing that. Look, Andrew, as you know, as part of the GlobalVision, we laid out a little about that as well, right? In our digital workflow solutions more so, we are definitely seeing that. We are offering the AI application agentic kind of a layer kind of an applications on top of the solution that we provide to the customers. You're definitely seeing more on the digital workflow solutions side of the PQI. It's going to be expanding more and more, and we're making the investments even organically and from our talent perspective on that side as well. We're already offering products on that side to the customers.

Yeah, GlobalVision is squarely in that space, right?

Right. What GlobalVision brings to the table is a deterministic inspection engine, right?

It's designed to produce the same answer every time, because in regulated workflows, brand owners can't tolerate any room for error. These are reliable, repeatable processes with proprietary data sets that will render the accurate answer every time, right? The Esko TraceGains and GlobalVision teams are effectively all working together to employ AI throughout that workflow because it will allow more mistake-proofing and faster time to market while meeting regulatory requirements and traceability criteria.

Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Thanks, Jennifer.

You bet. Thank you. We will move next with Bryan Lee with Goldman Sachs.

Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, everyone.

Thanks for squeezing me in. I know a lot's been covered. Maybe a quick one from me. I'll take these offline. Just on high growth markets, maybe some comments around the outlook there, potential for further re-acceleration and growth. I know that North America and Western Europe have been really strong throughout the year on a relative basis. If you could maybe touch upon kind of what you're seeing out there and the forward outlook for the high growth markets. Thanks. Yeah. High growth markets were relatively flat.

We see a little bit of a tale of two cities here between PQI and water. For our China business, we've got strong growth in PQI, and we've got a little bit of shrink on the water side. I would say Latin America as well continues to see good order rates, but sales are a little bit down year-over-year, and they're improving sequentially. I think we see underlying demand that remains strong, but we do see some timing delays in projects that are there. Again, we continue to watch and focus on execution between these different markets around the world. We're pleased with what we see in recovery in China for PQI, still waiting for water to recover there in terms of traction. We're watching Latin America closely.

All right. Thank you. Appreciate the color.

You bet. Thanks, Brian. This is Ryan Taylor.

We appreciate everybody that was able to engage with us on the call. At this time, we have hit our time limit, our 45 minutes for the call, we're going to have to cut it off here. As usual, I'll be available for follow-ups throughout today and over the course of the next several days. We thank everybody for joining us, and we'll talk to you next time.

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation.