GPGI Stock

[Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, GPGI's Corporate Secretary. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to GPGI's third quarter conference call. This morning's remarks will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including those disclosed in our SEC filings available at sec.gov and on our investor relations website. Additionally, definitions and reconciliations for non-GAAP measures appear in today's press release and earnings presentation, which are available in our SEC filings and on our investor relations website. As a reminder, following the Resolute Holdings spin-off, current GAAP interpretation requires GPGI to account for GPGI Holdings, including our CompoSecure and Husky businesses, under the equity method of accounting. With that, I will turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Dave Cote.

Good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, GPGI delivered results in line with our expectations. The results were driven by continued strength at CompoSecure and improving demand at Husky.

Starting with CompoSecure, ROS is taking hold deeper in the organization, and its impact on growth and profitability continues. The company delivered record sales and adjusted EBITDA, margin expansion, and strong operating performance in the quarter. With robust demand from an expanding base of leading issuers, CompoSecure is well positioned to close out 2026, while Graham and his team are also doing the necessary deep planning for 2027 and beyond. We're proud of the cultural change that has occurred at Compo. The results you see are an outcome of a high-performance culture combined with smart strategic investments in a business that has a great position in a good industry.

Turning to Husky, we've owned the business for approximately 10 months, and while the performance to date has not lived up to our high expectations, Husky is a fundamentally great business. We faced severe macro headwinds shortly after closing, when the Iran war created a resin price shock that significantly impacted customer purchasing behavior overnight. With an evolving demand picture, we have also faced margin headwinds due primarily to cost actions that have taken us longer to realize than anticipated. That said, I have full confidence in the trajectory of the business as we see demand improving, our pipeline and orders accelerating, cost actions back on track, and margins stabilizing with clear opportunity for Husky to accelerate performance in 2027.

We're focused on driving cultural change at Husky to execute today while also making the investments necessary for the company to achieve its potential. This work was made more challenging with the market issues in the first half of the year, but our commitment to doing what is necessary in the business is unwavering. Husky does have a great position in a good industry. Market disruptions happen, and we're using this as a culture-change accelerant. Husky performed in line with our expectations this quarter with sales recovering year-over-year and margins improving sequentially led by the return to growth in systems and strength in our service business.

While we still face some delays in orders converting to revenue and customer deferrals on aftermarket tooling excluding service, we still have a lot of work to do. We see a clear uplift in orders, which provides the momentum and backlog coverage for a strong start to 2027. Specifically, our pipeline is up approximately 16% year-over-year. Total orders are up approximately 7% year-over-year. And recurring aftermarket orders are up approximately 13% year-over-year through the third quarter.

Notably, we anticipate further acceleration in the fourth quarter given a strengthening high-confidence near-term pipeline, particularly for new systems. This momentum is not unexpected as Husky serves an underlying market that grows consistently. This means that while demand can be deferred, especially for new system purchases as we saw in the first 2 quarters of the year, it is more consistent over time. It is important to note that pipeline and order growth is occurring despite resin prices moving higher and remaining at elevated levels. We expect demand to continue returning to more normalized levels as customers require our mission-critical equipment to fulfill growing end-market demand.

At the same time, we anticipate improved operating leverage and partial realization of ongoing cost actions to drive a return to more normalized profitability in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, we're adjusting our full year 2026 guidance while still expecting a sequentially strong fourth quarter, consistent with historical seasonality. For the fourth quarter, we now anticipate low single-digit organic revenue growth and high single-digit EBITDA growth at the midpoint of the range.

For full year 2026, we expect to achieve our prior revenue forecast from May, but are lowering the range for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow due primarily to delayed realization of cost actions and mix at Husky, offsetting continued strong performance at CompoSecure. Tom will go deeper into our forward guidance. Rob will provide more information than we would typically share regarding Husky, but I would note that while 2026 has been a foundational year for GPGI, we expect to see a return to our long-term growth algorithm next year and intend to grow GPGI's earnings and cash flow faster than the market to deliver superior durable through-the-cycle returns for our investors.

As a reminder, the long-term growth algorithm we previously outlined is to deliver mid-to-high single-digit organic growth, over 100 basis points of annual margin expansion through the deployment of ROS, resulting in double-digit-plus annual EBITDA growth. This performance is driven by our continued strategic investments in the businesses we own, the seed planting today that is necessary for them to achieve their potential tomorrow. Our ROS lies at the core of how we operate GPGI. It is an end-to-end commitment to grow sales, control costs, and generate the cash necessary for accretive investing, which should compound returns for our investors.

Businesses are a collection of connected processes, and we are highly focused on end-to-end improvement that translates operational efficiencies into durable financial performance. So, Graham and Rob will each discuss examples of how ROS is transforming CompoSecure and Husky. I will emphasize how driving this daily mindset compounds performance over time. ROS is fundamentally a system designed to give businesses the necessary tools to become world-class operations that turn superior customer experiences into a catalyst for profitable growth.

To conclude, we are making progress across the platform. Both CompoSecure and Husky are companies with great positions in good industries, and they are businesses we are proud to own. We remain focused on execution to deliver in the fourth quarter, while also taking the necessary steps to position the platform for strong performance next year. With that, I'll turn it over to Tom Knott, our Chief Investment Officer.

Thank you, Dave. Going to Slide 4, GPGI delivered results in line with our expectations, with pro forma adjusted net sales of $509.6 million, up approximately 5% from the prior year; pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $146.3 million, up approximately 7% from the prior year; and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins of 28.7%, up approximately 60 basis points from the prior year. GPGI also generated approximately $81 million in pro forma adjusted free cash flow in the third quarter, higher than the prior year.

Turning to Slide 5, we are issuing guidance for the fourth quarter that reflects continued strength at CompoSecure, offset by the delayed realization of identified cost actions and margin headwinds at Husky. We expect pro forma adjusted net sales to be between $630 million and $660 million, up approximately 1% from the prior year at the midpoint of the range. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA between $178 million and $208 million, up approximately 8% from the prior year at the midpoint of the range. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins between 27% and 29%, flat from the prior year at the midpoint of the range. And pro forma adjusted free cash flow between $77 million and $127 million.

At a segment level, we anticipate CompoSecure to continue delivering strong revenue growth and profitability with fourth quarter revenue growth in the high teens year-over-year. For Husky, despite geopolitical uncertainty and elevated resin prices, we now expect a range of plus or minus low single-digit growth consistent with historical seasonality, coupled with sequential margin expansion driven by improving operating leverage, ROS-led efficiency gains, and the partial realization of savings from ongoing cost actions.

We are also adjusting our full year 2026 guidance. With better visibility into Husky's order book and delivery dates for the seasonally largest quarter of the year, we anticipate revenue to be on the higher end of our prior range and for GPGI to deliver low single-digit revenue growth year-over-year. Currently, we are lowering our outlook for adjusted EBITDA margins and free cash flow due to margin headwinds at Husky, primarily due to delayed realization of identified cost actions, product mix, higher freight costs, and continued investments necessary to position the business for growth in 2027 and beyond. These investments partially offset some of the realized cost savings to date, as Rob will explain in more detail.

Taken together, we expect pro forma adjusted net sales to be between $2.034 billion and $2.064 billion, up approximately 1% year-over-year at the midpoint of the range. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA to be between $520 million and $550 million, down approximately 2% year-over-year at the midpoint of the range. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins between 25% and 27%, down approximately 80 basis points year-over-year at the midpoint of the range. And pro forma adjusted free cash flow between $250 million and $300 million, reflecting healthy cash generation even with elevated growth CapEx.

Importantly, despite the market-driven headwinds at Husky, we still anticipate full-year growth across the recurring part of our business: aftermarket tooling, spare parts, and service contracts. This resilience is consistent with our original investment thesis and is enabled by the non-discretionary nature of the markets we serve with our large and growing installed base. While we expect systems revenue to decline high-single to low-double digits year-over-year in 2026, we anticipate a return to growth in 2027, evidenced by the growing pipeline and order book we are seeing today, because customers can only delay system orders for so long if they are to have the capacity needed to fulfill the consumption-driven end markets they serve.

As Dave mentioned, with the demand picture improving at Husky, we are focused on executing on the cost actions necessary to position the business well for 2027. We expect the realization of identified cost actions and improving operational efficiencies to drive sustained margin expansion at Husky in line with our long-term growth algorithm throughout 2027. With that, I'd like to thank all of you for your time, and I will turn the call over to Graham Robinson, the CEO of CompoSecure.

Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Looking at Slides 6 and 7, we delivered another strong quarter in line with our expectations as we continue to accelerate our commercial and operational momentum. ROS-led initiatives continue to translate into improved growth and profitability as we achieved record adjusted net sales of $140.7 million, up approximately 16% compared to the prior year, underscoring both the robust demand for premium metal cards and the effectiveness of our commercial execution across regions. We also delivered record adjusted EBITDA of $61.2 million this quarter, up approximately 23% from the prior year, and saw adjusted EBITDA margins expand approximately 230 basis points year-over-year and approximately 220 basis points sequentially to 43.5%. The margin expansion reflects the net impact of consistent, incremental efficiency gains, partially offset by reinvestment in the business.

In the third quarter, we also marked 2 years since Resolute's initial investment. This milestone presents an opportunity to reflect on the ROS-led cultural transformation. We have firmly established a high-performance culture where we operate with a strong sense of accountability and urgency each day. I have seen our team galvanize around this cultural shift, and the buy-in is contagious. Importantly, it is directly translating into financial results. Over the past year, we reduced manufacturing waste by approximately 30% as a result of our ROS focus. This transformation demonstrates the power of collaborative problem solving to unlock constraints and deliver for our customers.

Our investment in the commercial organization is translating into accelerating issuer activity and program wins across a broadening and diversified customer base. Our signature program wins reflect the breadth of demand for premium card solutions, and our differentiated value proposition combining advanced design, engineering, and technology and manufacturing capabilities to reinforce our position as the partner of choice for issuers launching high-impact card programs.

The third quarter also featured a premium metal debit card for a leading wealth management bank. We have always believed that the metal debit card value proposition to financial institutions was an overlooked opportunity, and the traction we are seeing in debit is starting to prove this thesis out. Metal debit cards for premium clients allow financial institutions to promote a differentiated and distinguished customer experience, which in turn should help retain those clients' deposit base, provide significant value well in excess of the incremental cost of metal, and further cementing the ROS-driven value of metal cards.

While encouraged by our progress, we maintain a relentless focus on investing in our future and executing on our 3 pillars of growth, which include accelerating organic growth, driving international expansion, and increasing Arculus momentum. Select initiatives to support these strategic priorities include penetration of the debit card market, an introductory metal card for issuers upgrading from plastic, a new design center in London to closely collaborate with international customers, and active evaluation of new verticals beyond payment cards. In aggregate, our results highlight the tangible benefits we continue to unlock from a high-performance culture and the systematic deployment of ROS.

Turning to Slide 8, I want to take a moment to walk through why we are so excited about the business going into 2027. CompoSecure is a category creator. We pioneered the premium metal card and continue to push boundaries of innovation with new product launches that translate to new signature programs. We are trusted by leading global issuers to produce their top-of-wallet cards, and we have a growing, diversified base of long-tenured customers. Importantly, our metal cards represent low-cost, high-criticality products for issuers that create a force multiplier to drive high ROI, low break-even, and enhance customer loyalty.

We also see tailwinds that directly support our commercial momentum. Metal cards still have an ultra-low penetration of a large total addressable market. And we see issuers ramping spending on marketing and rewards to support an accelerating adoption of metal cards. And while we have over 200 active programs today, we still see significant runway for international expansion, as well as new product adjacencies to complement our core business. Overall, we are operating from a position of strength and are confident in our ability to capitalize upon the significant opportunity ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob Domodossola, the CEO of Husky.

Thanks, Graham.

Slide 9. Husky saw a return to top-line growth and stabilizing profitability, delivering adjusted net sales of $368.9 million, up 0.5% from prior year; pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $88.8 million, down 0.9% from prior year; and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins of 24.1%, down approximately 30 basis points from prior year. Our performance was in line with expectations as we navigated a recovering demand environment and saw a return to growth in system sales as well as high single-digit growth in our service business.

We saw improving order demand as total orders increased by 7% year-over-year and 4% sequentially. Aftermarket tooling orders were up 19% year-over-year and spare parts orders up 17% year-over-year. Year-to-date through the end of the third quarter, systems orders are now up 4%, aftermarket tooling orders are up 9%, and parts orders are up 10%. This momentum in orders continued through October as we saw total orders up 21% year-over-year and aftermarket orders up 8% year-over-year. While these orders take time to translate into revenue, these trends, coupled with our expanding backlog and near-term pipeline, give us confidence in delivering the fourth quarter and accelerating into 2027.

As sales grew sequentially, we expanded margins by approximately 500 basis points quarter-over-quarter through improving labor and fixed cost absorption, as well as from partial realization of ongoing cost actions. We expect these trends to continue in the seasonally strongest fourth quarter, consistent with historic performance. As operating leverage from higher revenues drives improved margins, further enhanced by our in-flight cost and productivity initiatives, we are encouraged by these early operational efficiency gains and recognize there remains significant opportunity to improve and sustain higher profitability through the ongoing deployment of ROS.

Our culture and operational transformation is fundamentally changing the way we operate every single day. Even while navigating a turbulent macro environment, ROS provides the structure, the discipline, and the visibility needed to drive continuous improvement across our businesses. We start each morning with an improved cross-functional S&OP process to understand real-time demand trends, improve factory loading, reduce lead time and waste, and increase production outputs. We have redesigned our sales force to strengthen commercial effectiveness, and we're beginning to see the signs of new capabilities translate into accelerating pipeline and orders. We have also enhanced our global coordination across factories and are deploying a blitz of Kaizens to improve unit cost production and shorten lead times. There is a significant runway for ROS deployment, but it has already driven measurable improvements in growth, operations, and financial performance.

We remain firmly committed to making strategic investments in innovation and product development to ensure our solutions remain best-in-class, helping our customers maximize output, improve productivity, and reduce their total cost of ownership. I also want to highlight the recent launches and strong customer reception to our HyCAP PRO beverage closure platform and our HyCAP 4.0 Next Generation Tooling Platform. These products are specifically engineered to help beverage closure manufacturers achieve ultra-lightweight, tethered, and high-performance designs with improved precision, durability, and efficiency. It is yet another example of how Husky is committed to customer-centric innovation that delivers industry-leading efficiencies and a lower total cost of ownership than competitors.

Now going to Slide 10, I want to provide additional context for our financial performance. As Tom mentioned, while demand is improving, we have been slow in executing the cost actions identified earlier in the year. We are refocused on executing on them now to prepare for 2027. These actions focus on optimizing labor utilization, reducing discretionary spending, and driving greater fixed cost discipline across the organization. There is an intentional strategy behind these initiatives. We are focused on enhancing efficiency and profitability while preserving our ability to respond quickly when demand fully recovers. This balance is critical as we want to ensure that Husky remains positioned to capture growth opportunities as market conditions improve.

We expect margins to continue to improve sequentially in the fourth quarter. Margin expansion is expected to be driven directly by improved fixed costs, ongoing cost-saving initiatives, and operating improvements from ROS, partially offset by necessary growth investments and product mix. We continue to closely monitor the evolving tariff policy changes, but do not expect tariffs to have a material impact on our financial performance.

In summary, while market conditions remain dynamic, we believe Husky remains well positioned to deliver in the fourth quarter and accelerate into the first quarter of 2027. We have improved visibility on pipeline and orders, and have already booked significantly more systems into our production queue for the first quarter than last year. In addition, we continue to make disciplined investments in R&D and innovation, with several new products and technology advancements progressing through our pipeline. These investments reinforce our technology leadership and position us to capture additional growth opportunities as customer demand recovers.

Now, turning to Slide 11, let me provide a more granular view on the commercial momentum that gives us confidence and visibility for delivering in 2027. As we have mentioned, the total pipeline is building sequentially, and we also have seen strength in our high-confidence near-term pipeline, particularly in systems for the fourth quarter. With third quarter orders, not only were we up 7% year-over-year, but our ending October was up 21% year-over-year, demonstrating strengthening demand from our customers. Our backlog was up 5% at quarter end and sequentially, and we expect it to be approximately double-digit-plus to end the year.

To reiterate the importance of our aftermarket business, aftermarket orders were up 13% year-over-year through the third quarter and up 8% year-over-year in October, with a growing installed base and bottlers increasingly pursuing lightweighting. This supports recurring aftermarket demand for Husky over time.

Moving to Slide 12, it is worth acknowledging the second-half seasonality inherent to Husky. Across both adjusted net sales and adjusted EBITDA, you can see the consistency in the higher second-half weighing over the past 3 years. While we lower our full year guidance for adjusted EBITDA due to margin headwinds, we expect our second-half performance to fall in line with historical seasonality.

Going to Slide 13, I want to provide some additional context on how Husky's forecast evolved through this period of uncertainty. While our end-market demand is improving and the second-half sales increase is materializing as forecasted, many primary drivers of EBITDA guidance adjustments are delayed in executing identified cost reduction initiatives and unfavorable mix. When we provided our outlook in May, we had planned a combination of furloughs, direct and indirect headcount reductions, and indirect cost reductions. While we were successful in implementing 2 rounds of furloughs and also reducing some indirect spend, we have been slow to deliver fully on planned cost reductions. These delays, net of EBITDA contribution from incremental sales, represent approximately $20 million of EBITDA headwind. We are focused on addressing this to position the company well for 2027.

We have instituted a more rigorous S&OP process to better align direct labor with demand, while improving workforce visibility and variability in our factories. Additionally, the planned indirect headcount reductions are expected to be complete by year-end, with the full benefit flowing through in 2027. Separately, unfavorable machine and auxiliary mix is weighing on margins in the near term. However, system sales expand our installed base and create opportunities for higher aftermarket revenue over time.

Overall, while the EBITDA shortfall is disappointing, improvement is now more in our control with demand strengthening, and we have identified the levers to drive that improvement, positioning the business for stronger execution and for better profitability. With that, I will hand it back to Dave.

So moving to Slide 14, I want to address the return to our long-term growth algorithm. Across both businesses, we see tailwinds developing that will allow GPGI to deliver accelerating growth and margin expansion in 2027. The total addressable market for CompoSecure is massive and remains untapped, evidenced by good momentum across traditional banks, fintechs, and consumer co-brands, both domestically and internationally.

While resin price volatility caused demand deferrals that impacted the business, particularly in the timing of new system sales, global consumption of PET beverage bottles continues to exhibit healthy growth, underscoring the quality of the market and our growing pipeline and backlog positions as we look to next year. At the same time, our R&D increases will continue and are a central pillar for bolstering our competitive advantage and generating additional demand with customer-centric innovation. We also expect in-flight ROS initiatives to deliver revenue growth and margin expansion through focused commercial execution, improved operating leverage, and incremental productivity gains.

Lastly, we are planning growth CapEx investments to scale capacity for both businesses in anticipation of long-term demand growth. While these growth investments will impact our near-term cash flow conversion, they are intentional strategic investments to position each business for further profitable growth. After prioritizing deleveraging, we anticipate reducing net debt by more than $200 million through the end of this year and ending the year at approximately 3.5x leverage. This will position us well to bring total leverage within our long-term target range next year.

Turning to Slide 15, it's worth taking stock of our current valuation based on our expectations to return to the long-term growth algorithm. We believe we are significantly undervalued relative to both the market and the industrial sector. I would note that we intentionally structured GPGI to provide complete alignment of interest between our management team and our investors. My family personally owns nearly 18% of GPGI today, so there is significant skin in the game to deliver the performance we anticipate next year and beyond. As you've heard me say many times, and I still think it's true, buy now while supplies last.

So despite the headwinds we faced in the first half, we're fully focused on delivering in the fourth quarter, accelerating into 2027, and returning to our growth algorithm. Both businesses are aggressively driving cultural and operational transformation under ROS, and we expect these critical process improvements to drive sustainable compounding returns. The market may not see it today, but CompoSecure and Husky are fundamentally high-quality businesses, each with great positions in good industries and with the ability and expectation to deliver compounding growth. I see even more opportunities for both businesses today than ever before.

To close, GPGI's long-term platform strategy remains fully on track. Our unique combination of decentralized businesses, a proven operating system, and disciplined capital allocation position us to deliver superior returns for our investors. With that, let's open it up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Tomo Sano of J.P. Morgan.

Maybe just on CompoSecure, this seems to be performing well as you look to accelerate growth from here into 2027. How are you thinking about commercializing opportunities beyond the core metal credit cards, such as debit cards and new designs or use cases in 2027 and then beyond? Thank you.

Thanks for the question, Tomo. We are actively looking at a number of ways to drive growth with metal cards, whether it is international, whether it is leveraging Arculus for additional use cases. And we are working with a number of people to help facilitate that across the board. In addition to that, we work with all the traditional banks, the fintechs, and we look at additional areas of customers for business models that will accelerate growth. So we are very, very confident and ever optimistic about where we're positioned and our opportunity for growth.

Thank you. And shifting here to the Husky business, as we look into 2027, how much of the growth and incremental revenues do you expect to realize in this business? What gives you confidence that margins will improve with sales growth in 2027? Thank you.

Sure, I can take that. So I think the first part was with regards to the growth aspect of it. So we're seeing, like I said, a significant increase in the pipeline, specifically in the high-probability pipeline. That gives us confidence in the next quarter of orders and specific to our high systems, so our high-cavitation systems, which is a really good indicator of the market coming back. With regards to margins, the best thing for us is to fill the factory with rateable orders, and we're applying the discipline of the S&OP process to level load the factory. So with the increase in system orders that we're seeing flow through now and the more rateable cost of loading labor, we see margins improving. Thank you very much.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Kurt Martinson of Locust Wood Capital.

A few from me. The first one for Rob. Could you just help us unpack the $25 million of cost actions that you put into the execution bucket? Did any of this reflect deliberate seed planting, stuff like bringing labor on or keeping labor on for the future recovery or retaining capacity versus actions that took you longer than you expected to realize? And how much did the tougher end-market backdrop slow implementation? Beyond the indirect headcount actions finishing up by year-end, what really remains to be done so you have a clean jumping-off point into 2027?

So there was definitely a mix. Starting with direct labor, we're still not where we need to be with regards to the S&OP process. It took us longer to get there. The factories from the start of the month to the end of the quarter saw some significant variability from a valley to a peak. And so that was a challenge to manage through, but we've significantly improved our S&OP process. We're level-loading the factory, like I said, consistently daily now, and so we should see that benefit flow through for the fourth quarter and beyond. So that was a big part of it for sure with regards to the cost variability that we saw. With regards to indirect costs, like I said, that'll be done by the end of the year and should flow through for the full year 2027.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then maybe this one is for Dave or Tom, but after owning Husky for the better part of a year, has anything changed on your longer-term view of Husky's overall margin expansion opportunity? I believe you talked about 500 basis points over 5 years or something to that order. And as you're thinking of all of that, where do the biggest gains come from, whether that be productivity, procurement, or commercial execution?

First of all, no. My view certainly hasn't changed. And I think I'm speaking for Tom when I say that's true for both of us. And the nice thing about it is all the things you mentioned are opportunities for us. Everything could be better. And just focusing on things like cost competitiveness, what we do with purchasing, how well we run our SIOP, how well all our processes work, which is perfect for ROS. How do we make sure that we expand our global position? Man, all these things look just terrific.

And kind of building on Rob's point on direct labor, I would say there was a misfire there that I think Rob would agree with, that there was kind of a hope that sales might turn out to be better than they were, so we carried direct labor a little longer than we should have. And that's been a big part of what he's been doing to inject real reality into the SIOP process, which should make our direct labor on an ongoing basis a lot more consistent with what sales are going to be.

So, no, actually, I feel quite good about all this. And both Tom and I were encouraged by the fact that despite all the concerns that existed about the second-half ramp when it came to sales and all the discussion we had about historical seasonality, it turned out exactly that way. The part where we missed was on the cost side, and that's very fixable, and in fact, pretty much is fixed at this point. So as we go into 2027, we're both feeling pretty good about everything. Tom, anything you want to add?

Yeah, I mean, Kurt, I would just add, I think all that Dave said is correct. Opportunity everywhere, and we're getting after it. I think one thing that we continue to look at is the performance in the aftermarket business. There's opportunity for us to do even better there. But I've been around the world recently, I've spent a lot of time with customers, and I think the customer view of Husky products remains incredibly strong. What we serve them is really high-quality equipment that's mission-critical. The aftermarket is proving that even in a very challenging market that's now abating as we talked about and you can see the pipeline building. And so I feel very good about what's in front of us. We've got to go execute, and like Dave said, much of that's already done, and we'll be ready for '27.

Great. And then just on the Husky demand picture, it's great to see the recovery unfolding like you predicted the business would a few quarters ago, even in the darker days of late spring. Orders are obviously accelerating. You're talking about backlog ending the year up double digits. So with the caveat being that it's still early November and you're not ready to give explicit 2027 guidance yet, given the easier comparison and everything that I just went over, is there reason to believe that Husky's growth could be above the longer-term algorithm, or are there other headwinds that we should factor in when thinking about the jumping-off point as we exit 2026?

Yes, I'd say too early to commit to anything like that. But what you just described is possible. And it's one of the things that we're evaluating currently as we understand the order profile and backlog, how are things looking going into 2027. So, yes, the whole idea of a market rebound is possible, but we're not committing to anything yet until we have a much better understanding of how November, December, and January come together. Thank you.

Great. Look forward to seeing this all come together for Husky as it mirrors the performance at CompoSecure next year. Very good.

Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. Thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GPGI Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Dave Marshall. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to GPGI's second quarter conference call. This morning's remarks will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including those disclosed in our SEC filings available at sec.gov and on our IR website. Additionally, definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures used today appear in today's press release and earnings presentation, which are available in our SEC filings and on our IR website. As a reminder, following the Resolute Holdings spin-off, GPGI accounts for GPGI Holdings, including our CompoSecure and Husky businesses under the equity method of accounting in accordance with GAAP. With that, I will turn over the call to Executive Chairman, Dave Cote.

Good morning, everyone. GPGI continues to execute with discipline and focus with our customers at the center of everything we do. In the second quarter, we continued to see progress across the platform and delivered results that were consistent with both our expectations and the guidance range we introduced last quarter. The results were driven by continued strength at CompoSecure and some indications of relief as we continue to navigate transient market headwinds at Husky. Starting with CompoSecure, we're seeing the continued transformative impact of ROS on growth and operations, delivering record sales, strong operating performance and both year-over-year and sequential margin expansion.

With robust demand from a broadening base of customers, CompoSecure is well positioned to continue accelerating organic growth and improving profitability in the second half of the year. CompoSecure is 1 year ahead of Husky in the deployment of ROS, and we are seeing how cultivating a high-performance culture and making strategic investments enable a sustained inflection in financial performance.

Turning to Husky. We're navigating through transient market headwinds caused by volatile resin prices and shipping disruptions related to the conflict in the Middle East and continued tariff uncertainty. The macro environment has improved marginally since we last spoke to you as oil and resin prices have come off their previous peaks set in late April, and our customers are beginning to have a bit more confidence in making purchase decisions. However, the second quarter was still impacted by macro uncertainty, and we're beginning to see pockets of demand recovery and continue to expect a strong second half that is consistent with historic seasonal trends.

In addition to demand gradually returning, we expect improved operating leverage and discrete cost actions to drive margin expansion, both sequentially and year-over-year through the second half.

Importantly, we're starting to see initial signs of ROS taking hold at Husky and are aggressively accelerating its implementation to drive durable organic growth and sustainably higher margins. As a reminder, ROS is a cornerstone of how we operate at GPGI. It represents an end-to-end commitment to grow sales, control costs and generate the cash necessary for seed planting, accretive investing and compounding returns for investors. ROS is how we translate strategy into results, be it operating metrics, financial performance or strategic breakthroughs. I'll let Graham and Rob provide specific examples of how ROS is moving the needle at CompoSecure and Husky, but we'll note how this daily mindset compounds performance over time and builds the next generation of world-class operators.

Looking at CompoSecure, we clearly see the inflection in growth and profitability enabled by our investments in the sales force and R&D over the past 21 months. This demonstrates the multifaceted focus of ROS well beyond just managing costs. The ROS flywheel specifically requires cultural change to catalyze operational change. That is why I'm so pleased we announced the appointments of Mohammad Kanaan as Chief Financial Officer; and Karen Stone as Chief Human Resources Officer of Husky. Mohammad and Karen are proven leaders with significant global experience that will accelerate the cultural transformation Rob is leading across the business, and both will be integral to our next phase of growth. Change agents make a difference. I also want to highlight how we think about DPGI's long-term growth algorithm.

Specifically, we're focused on delivering mid- to high single-digit annual organic growth, over 100 basis points of annual margin expansion through the deployment of ROS, double-digit plus annual EBITDA growth and 90% to 100% free cash flow conversion over time. This is happening while we are strategically investing in the businesses, doing the seed planting today that is necessary for them to achieve their potential tomorrow. The plan is simple. We intend to grow GPGI's earnings and cash flow faster than the market to deliver superior, durable through-the-cycle returns for our investors.

To conclude, we are extremely focused on execution, remain well positioned to deliver in the second half and are reiterating our full-year guidance. We're also continuing to pursue critical seed planting initiatives to deliver in 2026 and accelerate into 2027. This includes strategic investments and operational improvements that position GPGI to capture incremental sales and margin as Husky's markets rebound. Overall, our thesis remains firmly intact, and we're excited about the path GPGI is on. So with that, I'll turn it over to Tom Knott, our CIO.

Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. Going to Slide 4, GPGI delivered pro forma adjusted net sales of $473.2 million, down approximately 4% from the prior year, pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $113.9 million, down approximately 13% from the prior year and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins of 24.1%, down approximately 230 basis points from the prior year.

Despite the market headwinds of Husky, GPG (sic) [ GPGI ] also generated approximately $63 million in pro forma adjusted free cash flow in the second quarter, significantly higher than the prior year. As Dave mentioned, these results were in line with our expectations.

Turning to Slide 5. We are reiterating our full year revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow guidance. We continue to expect pro forma net sales between $1.95 billion and $2.1 billion, pro forma adjusted EBITDA between $550 million and $610 million and pro forma adjusted free cash flow between $275 million and $325 million, which we define as cash from operations less capital expenditures, adding back onetime Husky transaction expenses on a full year pro forma basis. While these guidance ranges remain the same, we are adjusting our pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin guidance to between 27% and 29% to reflect tariff pass-through revenues and the potential mix impact at Husky from stronger system performance through the remainder of the year than we anticipated last quarter.

Our full year 2026 guidance translates into roughly flat year-over-year revenue and approximately 7% pro forma adjusted EBITDA growth at the midpoint, even with the market-driven weakness at Husky, highlighting the resilience of the combined GPGI platform. Relatedly, I want to address the key components for the second half performance.

Starting with CompoSecure, we expect strong revenue growth and margin expansion to continue through the rest of the year. For Husky, we expect a second half consistent with historical seasonality, coupled with improved labor and fixed cost absorption and ROS-led efficiency gains and full realization of savings from discrete cost actions to support anticipated sequential and year-over-year margin improvement.

With respect to our capital structure, we remain focused on debt paydown and are still targeting 3x leverage by the end of 2026. Our long-term leverage target at GPGI is between 2x and 2.5x, excluding potential onetime step-ups for strategic acquisitions. We continue to view 2026 as a critical year of cultural change, ROS implementation and strategic seed planting at both businesses to position us for best-in-class top line growth, margin expansion and free cash flow generation across GPGI. This remains our focus, and we are confident in the work that is underway.

Moving to Slide 6. I want to take a moment to discuss our philosophy regarding capital allocation at GPGI. First and foremost, we are focused on acquiring and operating companies with great positions in good industries as the company's name suggests. These businesses like CompoSecure and Husky should all generate high returns on invested capital because that is what results from having a great position in a good industry.

We then aggressively deploy the Resolute operating system into each owned business, taking a systematic approach to operational improvements that both accelerate growth and drive margin expansion. This results in even higher returns on capital and accelerating growth in earnings and cash flow. With this cash flow, we first prioritize organic investments and bolt-on acquisitions as these investments usually have the highest returns on capital and serve to further bolster the competitive moats of each owned business. This is how we are building ComposSecure and Husky today.

We are aggressively deploying ROS, actively making significant organic investments and consistently evaluating bolt-on acquisitions for both companies. While early days, this is the organic flywheel we expect will create compounding returns at GPGI. We are excited about the prospects for GPGI with just the 2 businesses we own today. CompoSecure and Husky each have their own high-return investment opportunities, and we have the luxury of not needing to acquire any new platform businesses.

As you know, we have no deployment targets, no fund constraints or any other artificial requirements to buy new platforms, and we see opportunities to continue making high-return organic investments to drive the earnings power and cash generation capability at GPGI meaningfully higher than it is today. We are interested in acquiring a new platform only to the extent it meets our 6 acquisition criteria, a list designed to screen for durable high ROIC businesses that can benefit from ROS deployment and if that platform can be acquired at a fair price that will generate attractive returns on your capital.

The organic flywheel will spin faster as we add more platforms to GPGI over time because with more platforms, we will have more organic and bolt-on investment opportunities to drive earnings and cash flow, which in turn translates into higher intrinsic value of GPGI.

The key enablers for this compounding flywheel are threefold. First, our permanent capital base enables GPGI to make sound business decisions and invest with a long-term view. Second, ROS deployment is based on a proven operating playbook that we have refined across multiple companies over multiple decades. And finally, our corporate structure frees operators to exclusively focus on growing their businesses without the distractions of being a public company, but with the oversight that ensures the business is on track to achieve both near-term and long-term results.

Finally, to conclude my comments, I want to briefly describe what we are seeing in the marketplace. While we are interested in companies with great position in good industries generally, in the current environment, we see a large and growing backlog of the most scaled businesses owned by private equity firms that need to access the public markets.

This group of assets are too large for most sponsors to acquire, leaving a regular IPO as the primary exit path. But that path is suboptimal as it typically results in limited proceeds to the private equity sponsor, an over-levered public company and an overhang from excessive insider ownership, all of which results in an orphan security. This creates a lose-lose situation for the private equity sellers and for public shareholders. It is a topic that is beginning to get some coverage in the news, but it's a phenomenon we have been watching develop for almost 10 years at this point, starting when Dave and I began the process that ultimately resulted in our acquisition of Vertiv.

Private equity firms are increasingly facing pressure to monetize their investments to return capital to their investors, while at the same time, facing a traditional IPO market that, in our opinion, does not work for almost all the highly levered sponsor-backed businesses.

GPGI can address this problem in a compelling and unique way and the list of available assets in need of our solution is growing. Said simply, we believe the market is structurally moving in our direction, which adds to our confidence in the opportunity ahead, while at the same time, enabling us to be very disciplined in our assessment of new platform investments. With that, I'll turn the call over to Graham Robinson, the CEO of CompoSecure.

Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Going to Slide 7. We delivered another outstanding quarter at CompoSecure. Continuing to expand upon our commercial and operational momentum. We achieved record adjusted net sales of $133.6 million, up approximately 12% compared to the prior year, underscoring both the robust demand for premium metal cards and the effectiveness of our commercial execution across markets. This strength is translating to several new program wins and accelerating issuer activity across a broadening and diversified customer base. We're also seeing continued adoption of [ across ] capabilities.

In parallel with the rising penetration of premium metal cards, ROS continues to have a compounded impact across our business. We are realizing meaningful improvements across all functional areas, including manufacturing efficiencies to increase yield and drive record output, reinvigorated go-to-market strategy to effectively penetrate international markets and nonmanufacturing Kaizens to ensure efficiency gains extend beyond the factory to the office. These ROS-led initiatives directly helped us to deliver record adjusted EBITDA of $55.2 million this quarter, up approximately 14% from the prior year. A few of our recent high-profile program launches include Samsung, U.S. Bank's Amazon Business, American Express Delta SkyMiles Reserve, Klarna, DolarApp ARQ and Kast.

These signature program wins reflect the breadth of demand for premium card solutions and our differentiated value proposition, combining advanced design, engineering and manufacturing capabilities to reinforce our position as the partner of choice for issuers launching high-impact card programs. And in recognition of our market-leading card designs, CompoSecure has won 5 prestigious Élan Awards of Excellence at ICMA's 2026 Expo, including Best personalization product, unique innovation, unique innovation prototype, metal feature card and best regional card in North America.

While encouraged by our progress, we maintain a relentless focus on investing in our future and executing on our 3 pillars of growth, which include: one, accelerating organic growth; two, driving international expansion; and thirdly, increasing across momentum. Select initiatives to support these strategic priorities include penetration of the debit card market and introductory mental card for issuers upgrading from plastic, the opening of a new design center in London to better serve international customers, tokenization to provide an integrated activation experience and active evaluation of new verticals beyond payment cards.

Moving to Slide 8. Let me revisit the strength of our model and industry fundamentals. We're seeing continued adoption of payment cards globally, increasing the total addressable base of cards in circulation. Additionally, new issuers in international markets and the fintech segment are launching their first metal card programs and existing customers are expanding their programs through tiered card stacks to further drive improved customer acquisition, spend and retention.

The recent wins I mentioned highlight the trust issuers place in CompoSecure to deliver their signature programs and increasing breadth of our diverse customer base that features over 200 active card programs. CompoSecure is well positioned to further capture share with this expanding base. All of this supports a durable recurring revenue model as new cards are introduced, reissued, refreshed and upgraded over time.

Turning to Slide 9. I want to highlight a few incremental points regarding our financial performance. Specifically, ROS-led initiatives continue to translate into improved profitability as we saw adjusted EBITDA margins increased 70 basis points year-over-year to 41.3%. The sequential and year-over-year margin expansion is a result of consistent incremental efficiency gains that we expect to continue going forward. At the same time, we are strategically investing some of these gains to add capacity to support our next phase of growth. Overall, our results highlight the operating leverage and tangible benefits we continue to unlock from a high-performance culture and the systematic deployment of ROS.

We are operating from a position of strength and are confident in our ability to capitalize upon the significant opportunity ahead. With that, I will turn the call over to Rob Domodossola, the CEO of Husky. T

Thanks, Graham. Turning to Slide 10. Husky delivered adjusted net sales of $339.6 million, down approximately 9% from the prior year, pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $64.9 million, down approximately 23% from prior year and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.1%, down approximately 330 basis points from prior year. Our performance was in line with expectations and reflected the demand environment characterized by macroeconomic uncertainty, geopolitical tension, elevated oil and resin prices and evolving tariff policies. These factors resulted in deferral of certain capital investment projects.

Encouragingly, we began to see signs of stability during the quarter, including improvement in resin availability, stronger engagement across our system pipeline and the initial benefit of discrete cost actions that we expect to continue through the second half of the year. As sales improved sequentially, we expanded margin by approximately 590 basis points quarter-over-quarter through better labor and fixed cost absorption. We expect this trend to continue as we move into the seasonally stronger second half, consistent with historical performance.

Year-over-year margin performance was primarily impacted by lower volume and foreign exchange headwinds. Looking ahead, we expect revenue to be flat to slightly up year-over-year in the second half, while margins improved as operating leverage strengthens and the benefits of our cost and productivity initiatives are realized against the higher cost base established in the second half of last year, which was in anticipation of higher revenues than what was materialized this year.

Let me now address what we're doing at Husky to help navigate the current macroeconomic environment. A significant cultural and operational transformation is underway across the organization. I'm particularly excited about the recent additions to our leadership team. Mohammad brings significant financial and operating expertise. and Karen is helping accelerate our cultural transformation that is underway with added focus on accountability and engagement. We also recently promoted Benoit Jeanjot to Senior Vice President of Operations. Benoit rejoined Husky in 2025 and brings deep operational expertise to drive ROS deployment faster and deeper through our global footprint. Our transformation is anchored on the ongoing deployment of ROS, which is fundamentally changing the way we operate, particularly in periods of uncertainty. ROS provides discipline, structure and visibility needed to drive continuous improvement throughout the organization. To give you a sense of ROS in action, a few examples include daily cross-functional meetings to improve factory loading, reduce lead times and increased production outputs.

We also strengthened the commercial effectiveness to continue to grow our aftermarket business while identifying and rationalizing indirect spend through procurement discipline. At the same time, we continue to make investments in innovation and product development. We are still in the early stages of ROS, but we use it every day to drive measurable improvements in growth, operations and financial performance.

Moving to Slide 11. I want to take a moment to revisit the fundamental characteristics of Husky's business model. Husky's products and services support the production of essential nondiscretionary packaging needs for beverage, food and medical applications. Those end markets have demonstrated resilience across economic cycles.

Our installed base of approximately 13,500 systems worldwide, split between PT and packaging provides strong foundation for reoccurring aftermarket revenue. Approximately 30% to 35% of our revenue is generated from new systems. Another 40% comes from aftermarket tooling, including molds, hot runners and controllers and the remaining 25% to 30% comes from service, including our aftermarket parts and our Advantage+Elite remote monitoring solution. This diversified revenue profile provides stability across economic cycles while positioning us to grow alongside the long-term structural trends when customers resume capital investments.

Starting with systems, which typically has a sales cycle of approximately 6 months to 12 months, we have good visibility into pipeline activity, orders and backlog. Customers are engaging in long-term capacity planning discussions and we're beginning to see selective move forward with investment decisions. While near-term system demand can be volatile, over the long term, it remains the closest proxy for the health of the industry fundamentals.

Beverage consumption trends remain healthy, and our customers continue to focus on securing capacity and the production needed to meet future demand. In addition, as these systems delivered industry-leading efficiencies and lower total cost of ownership, making our value proposition even more compelling during periods of elevated resin and operating costs. Aftermarket tooling, which includes molds, hot runners and controllers, generally has a 2-month to 3-month sales cycle and is primarily driven by customer brand decisions to change form factors or introduce new products, along with necessary maintenance refurbishments.

During periods of high and volatile resin prices like we're seeing now, customer brands put product launches on hold until there's more certainty around resin price outlook. This creates a temporary period of order deferral, a phenomenon we are still seeing impact our aftermarket tooling business. However, we are confident that demand is being deferred rather than canceled, as evident by a robust and growing pipeline. Over the long term, trends such as lightweighting, sustainability and package optimization remain powerful demand drivers for our tooling solutions.

Across both systems and aftermarket tooling, our opportunity pipeline continues to expand. This gives us confidence that we are maintaining our market leadership position through periods of volatility and reinforces our belief that our technology and innovations continue to differentiate Husky in the marketplace.

On the service side, which is primarily driven by required maintenance, we observed year-over-year improvement in spare parts as customers prioritize productivity across their existing installed base.

Additionally, our Advantage+Elite solutions continues to gain traction with customers, supported by strong renewal rates and expanding adoption. These solutions help customers maximize uptime, improve productivity and reduce total cost of ownership through proactive monitoring and predictive maintenance capabilities. We continue to see significant opportunity in our service business with our existing installed base. As we connect more systems to our digital platform, we expect to accelerate recurring revenue.

We are also supporting additional aftermarket parts sales through proactive maintenance recommendations. At Husky, our focus is on what matters most for our customers, high uptime, high throughput and lower cost of ownership, which supports their growth and in turn, ours. Taken together, we continue to view the current softness as a point-in-time demand deferral rather than structural. We have seen this before and when customers' confidence inevitably improves and input cost volatility subsides, deferred investment activity typically returns and often at an accelerated pace.

The underlying growth drivers across our end markets remain intact, including growing customer demand, sustainability initiatives, lightweighting requirements and the ongoing need for greater manufacturing efficiency.

Going to Slide 12. Our technology and focus on innovation delivers industry-leading efficiencies for our customers that positions us to capitalize on the rising global demand for PET and other attractive substrates. A tiered specific examples include our new packaging machine platform, advances in our aftermarket tooling technology portfolio and a new tiered service model that gives customers increasing flexibility in how they engage with our Advantage+ digital service platform.

We are particularly excited in how these innovations work together to create multiple growth opportunities for Husky. Our new packaging platform expands our presence in attractive packaging applications and creates a foundation for future aftermarket and service opportunities.

Our tooling innovations allow us to capture a greater share of aftermarket spending by helping customers improve the performance of existing assets and upgrade legacy toolings already operating in the field. And our Advantage+Elite platform provides critical insights through data across our global installed base, which strengthens customer relationships and in turn, expands recurring opportunities for Husky.

Collectively, these initiatives highlight our continued investments in innovation, new product development and digital capabilities that will strengthen our competitive position, expand market share and support long-term profitable growth. Lastly, the growing awareness of PT's superior carbon footprint versus other substrates, global regulatory push for plastic circularity and an aging installed base all provide further tailwinds for Husky.

Overall, Husky is well positioned to capitalize on favorable long-term demand drivers across its highly durable end markets.

Turning to Slide 13. I want to provide additional context around the trajectory of our financial performance. We began implementing a series of discrete cost actions during the second quarter that already generate savings with a greater benefit expected in the second half of the year. These actions focus on improving productivity, optimizing labor utilization, reducing discretionary spending and driving greater SG&A discipline across the organization.

Importantly, there is an intentional strategy behind these initiatives. We are focused on enhancing efficiency and profitability while preserving our ability to respond quickly when demand fully recovers. This balance is critical as we want to ensure Husky remains positioned to capture growth opportunities as market conditions improve. Consistent with historical first and second half seasonality, we expect margins to continue improving sequentially through the remainder of the year.

Margin expansion in the third and fourth quarter is expected to be driven by fixed cost absorption in the seasonally stronger second half, ongoing cost-saving initiatives and operational improvements resulting from our ROS transformation efforts. partially offset by higher capital costs from Q1 and Q2 being realized in the second half of the year.

Turning briefly to tariff. While the evolving trade environment continues to influence customer purchasing time lines, as noted in the first quarter call, we do not expect tariffs to have a direct material impact on the overall financial performance. Our global manufacturing footprint provides flexibility to adapt to changing trade conditions, and we remain well positioned to manage tariff-related impacts.

In summary, while market conditions remain dynamic, we believe Husky is well positioned. We see some signs of stabilization, continued customer engagement, and we are advancing our operational transformation and executing targeted cost actions. At the same time, we continue to make disciplined investments in R&D and innovation with several new products and technology advancements progressing through our development pipeline. These investments reinforce our technology leadership and position us to capture additional growth opportunities as market conditions improve.

Taken together, these factors support our confidence in improved performance in the second half of 2026 and over the long term. I will now hand it back to Dave for some closing remarks.

So CompoSecure and Husky are both aggressively driving cultural transformations and advancing in their deployment of ROS, a gradual evolution that improves processes and behaviors to drive sustainable compounding returns. You can clearly see this inflection in results of CompoSecure, and you can expect the same at Husky over time as we effectively manage through market-induced volatility. As I've often said, we never let a good crisis go to waste and are fully using 2026 to set up GPGI for an acceleration in 2027. Our strategy is simple. We combine operational excellence with disciplined underwriting to create a home for high-quality businesses led by great operators.

Our permanent capital base and long-term ownership mindset position us to deliver superior returns for our shareholders. This is our focus today, tomorrow and even further into the future. So with that, let's open it up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] And now we're going to take our first question, and it comes from the line of Brendan Shea from JPMorgan.

If I could, I'd like to start with Husky. So you characterized the demand is deferred rather than canceled. You have visibility via orders and pipelines. Just can you quantify that pipeline conversion? Sort of what portion of the deferred system and tooling orders are already booked versus still in discussion? And then what kind of leading indicators or KPIs are you watching that would tell you whether or not that deferral thesis is breaking down for a second half acceleration versus being pushed out further into 2027?

Tom, why don't you start with overall and then Rob, all yours.

Sure. Yes, Brendan. So this is Tom. I'd say what we're not giving specific numbers on pipeline and orders. But what I would tell you is we saw acceleration in pipeline relative to when we last talked to you, pipeline growth is up double digits. We feel very good about that. I think similar, seeing good growth in orders. We mentioned briefly, we're actually seeing even better performance in systems than we thought last quarter.

And so while I wouldn't be declaring victory on the market, in general, we're seeing pockets of strength, and we're seeing machines particularly, which happen to have the most visibility for us as we look through the rest of the year and into '27, they're performing better than we thought last quarter. So I think generally, we're seeing things move in the direction we want, and I think the company is managing that well, and it's a result of a lot of focus by the commercial team. Rob, I don't know if you'd add to it.

Maybe just some color on some of the mix in the pipeline on the order side. But definitely, we're seeing good pipeline growth for systems, and that's PT systems and packaging machines globally. So -- and the mix is fairly even globally, which is a good sign. And just recently in the past few months, we've seen an acceleration as well in the pipeline growth of our aftermarket tooling, including both our PT tooling and our hot runner business. So that's a good sign for things to come.

Do you have any further questions, Brendan?

Yes, please. So just kind of if we could, we just stay on Husky here for a second. You've talked about the deployment of ROS -- they're a little bit behind CompoSecure just in terms of what you've accomplished so far. Can you talk to what has been done, what still has to be done? And then whether or not these -- the transient market headwinds, is that impacting the pace of deployment of ROS at Husky at all?

I love that question. Thank you. You talk to this -- Yes, Rob, if I could upfront, there is a lot left to do, and that's one of the things that excites us about the place because all those things that we need to work on are opportunities for us. So I'm pretty excited about where the team is going and what's possible here. So with that, Rob, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt all yours.

No, that's a great intro. Look, it's been hugely impactful in such a short period of time. And I break it into 3 big buckets. First is the strategic deployment. There's a select initiatives that matter most for the organization, a handful of initiatives that matter most for the organization in terms of prioritizing what needs to change. And ROS helps with strategy deployment through resource allocation through the best resources assigned to it and transparency and communication right through from top to bottom of the organization.

So focusing on what matters most and having that discipline to drive that execution has been hugely impactful. Secondly, lean daily management has been a bit of a cultural change at Husky, where everyone is looking within their own functions and end-to-end for waste and variability to improve processes, both again, within their function across end-to-end processes. And then we've established tools like Kaizen events that bring cross-functional teams together, subject matter experts to collaborate towards continuous improvements. And that behavior, that comb behavior is what creates culture. That cadence is what matters. And so yes, those things have been hugely impactful in a very short time to help us focus on what matters to help reduce waste and variability and to bring subject matter experts together on a regular cadence to drive continuous improvement.

And then one last one on Husky for me. Just kind of underlying macro expectations around the maintained guide, I guess, more of a total company question. But just you highlighted that conditions are improving within Husky, better oil and resin prices, et cetera. Can you speak to the assumed macro conditions within the guide? Can you hit those targets if the macro were to stay as is? Or are they kind of dependent upon some sort of further improvement from here?

Yes, Brendan, I would say consistent with what we said last quarter is the same this quarter, which is I don't think you should impute into our comments that we're seeing material improvements from where we were. I mean I think there's -- we feel confident in delivering the guide what we put out with what we're seeing in the business, but we're not anticipating things getting better from here. I think we talked about that last quarter. We see some marginal improvement today, but it's not like we see things back to normal or anywhere close to where we would expect them ultimately. I think what you should take away is we do have real confidence in the underlying business and the quality of it and the opportunities we're addressing, like Dave mentioned and Rob mentioned. And you can be sure we're doing the things today to set us up for that long-term return, but the guide does not assume things materially improve.

Okay. And then if I could squeeze in just a couple of related strategic questions. You've mentioned adding platforms over time, assuming they fit required criteria. Can you talk to the pipeline of opportunities as you see them? And then what do you kind of -- what's the ideal portfolio look like in terms of how many franchises you think is an ideal number to own at any one time? And then lastly, how do you prioritize between doing things like implementing ROS at acquired companies versus pursuing additional transactions, assuming they fit your required criteria?

Sure. Dave, do you want to start, and I'll go to the pipeline and the rest?

Yes. Actually, we're very active in looking at everything you just said, bolt-ons, new platforms. And it's going to depend on the business. I mean some businesses may already be running pretty well and ROS is not going to be as essential because they're already doing things pretty well. And it's the growth characteristics that we're going to focus ROS on.

Others are going to be more in a case where you just got to focus a lot more on the ops in the beginning while still supporting growth in order to make it happen. But we feel pretty good about both bolt-ons and new platforms for all the reasons that Tom mentioned in his comments. Tom?

Yes, Brendan, I would just say, I mean, we've been looking at this for a very long time. I think that the pipeline of opportunities is large and growing. I think that we're going to be really disciplined in what we look at. And the businesses that we evaluate must be great positions in good industries. And I think we feel really good about what we see in front of us with Husky and with Compo.

And so we're not in a rush to do anything. We don't have to. We don't need to, and we see a lot of earnings power growth and cash flow growth from these businesses, and we see a lot of opportunities for bolt-ons and for organic investments. That being said, I can talk with anyone about it. I believe there's a real structural problem facing large-cap private equity firms because I don't think that the regular way IPO is actually a credible path for a successful exit. And so we don't have to go look at all those. We know them. We spend time thinking about it. As Dave said, we're active, but we're going to be disciplined in what we look at. And I think there's a big stable of very high-quality businesses that are stuck. And we think we can be a very good solution for those, but we're not required to go do that. We don't have to do it. We're going to do it when it makes sense and fits with the overall platform.

And we're going to take our next question, and it comes from the line of Kurt Martinson from Locust Wood Capital.

Good job delivering on your commitments and showing some clear progress during the quarter. In mid-March, you called out an elongation in the sales cycle. So what are you seeing so far in early 3Q? And has the expected timing from pipeline to orders and then to sales begun to shorten as bottle grade PET resin prices have become more stable in recent weeks and months?

Sure. I can answer that. Yes, we have seen some changes to the pipeline. So we measure quantity through the pipeline, the conversion rates and the time it takes to actually flow from an opportunity to an order through the pipeline. And we have seen some improvements in both our system time line through the pipeline and our aftermarket tooling pipeline. Both have increased opportunities in the pipeline and the conversion rates have remained more or less the same.

Great. And then what actions are you seeing Husky's customers take to navigate the current macro conditions, particularly with still elevated resin prices and logistical challenges related to the closure in the Strait of Hormuz?

Yes, it's a good question. I mean I think a lot of them were a bit surprised early on in the quarter, but most of them now have secured longer-range resin purchases and/or have looked for alternative sources.

Great. And then last one, probably for Dave or Tom. It does sound like the pipeline of potentially attractive acquisition candidates is only growing. Can you just share some thoughts on GPGI's current readiness and willingness to act when the right opportunity comes along? And what goes into that factor of when you think you would be willing to take action?

Sure. The -- I'll start and then turn it over to Tom. We're ready to act. And if we see the right kind of opportunity at the right kind of price, it's got to be fair to the seller and fair to our investors. we will proceed. So it's just a question of discussion with the seller and they're kind of being willing to understand that the upside for their business is significantly greater with us than it is with anybody else because of the transformation that we can affect in a business, then we'll proceed. If it doesn't make sense for our shareowners, of course, we're not going to proceed. So it's all a question of individual cases. With that, Tom?

Yes, Kurt, I mean, I think you've heard us talk, you know Dave and me and the whole team here. We're incredibly focused on executing with what we've got, and you can hear that in the comments here, and it's really happening at both businesses. And I think you'll see that. I think we're focused on accretive transactions. We have the benefit of Dave and I and the team at Resolute have been looking at these businesses that are now stuck for almost 10 years. So we know them. We know how they performed.

We know the quality of them. We know what we think we can do with them. And we know what we think fair prices are for them. And so it's like Dave said, we're going to keep executing with what we got. We're going to deliver on what we say, and we're going to really go and focus on making these businesses as good as they can possibly be. And if there is another great position in a good industry, a real market leader that we can acquire accretively, we will do so if we can do it at the right price. And like I said, accretion is going to be important.

And I mentioned in my comments, what we like about that is we have lots of organic and bolt-on opportunities to invest for each of these businesses for Compo and for Husky, and we're evaluating those. Those are right in front of us. We're spending time on them. We're thinking about it, and they're intended to make the businesses better. If we have a third and a fourth business that is a great position in a good industry, the organic and bolt-on opportunities for the platform grow even more. And so that's why we like the position we're in. We don't have to do anything, but we're ready and we're looking and we're spending time with that disciplined framework in place.

I would say, Kurt, if I could just add to that. I mean we said this last quarter also, but the investment thesis is very much intact here. I'm quite excited as is Tom and our CEOs about what's possible here and what we're going to be able to do. It truly is unfortunate that with Husky, which have hit all the 6 criteria and is in the middle of a great cultural transformation under Rob's leadership, as you can see, he's changing and adding a lot of change agents into his organization and promoting them. It's unfortunate that the market timing, we got hit with it when we did. That being said, we're going to turn this into a powerhouse. And I couldn't be more excited about what we're going to do with GPGI and where it's going with the businesses we have and the businesses we're going to add.

Great. Excited to see this unfold over the next quarters. Good job over the past [indiscernible].

Yes, me too.

Thank you. Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management team for any closing remarks.

Thanks for joining us.

Yes. I kind of concluded my concluding remarks in my last answer to Kurt's question, it seems, but I really am pretty pumped up about where this is going and what we're going to do with it with the businesses we have and the businesses we're going to add. Thanks folks.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GPGI, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dave Marshall, Chief Legal Counsel. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Ann. Good morning and welcome to GPGI's conference call where we'll review GPGI's first quarter 2026 financial results. With me on the call today are the business leaders from GPGI, Resolute Holdings, CompoSecure and Husky. We'll begin with prepared remarks and then open the call for Q&A. During the call, we'll make statements regarding our business that may be considered forward-looking, including statements regarding our growth strategy, customer demand, macroeconomic factors, implementation of the Resolute Operating System and our guidance for 2026 as well as other statements regarding our plans and prospects.

For a discussion of material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to the information in our reports filed with the SEC, which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website and on the SEC's website at sec.gov. As a reminder regarding the company's accounting. On February 28, 2025, GPGI completed the spin-off of Resolute Holdings Management, Inc. and our wholly owned subsidiary GPGI Holdings entered into a management agreement with Resolute Holdings.

As a result, the results of operations of GPGI Holdings and the operating companies which are subsidiaries, including CompoSecure and Husky, are not consolidated in the financial statements of GPGI and are instead accounted for under the equity method of accounting. For more information about our financial presentation, please see our SEC filings, including our quarterly report on Form 10-Q to be filed later today. In the earnings release we issued earlier today and in the discussion on today's call, we also present non-GAAP financial measures to help investors better understand our operating performance.

The company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information to management and investors regarding certain financial and business trends impacting the company's financial condition and results of operations. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as an alternative to performance measures derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP and may be different from similarly titled non-GAAP measures used by other companies. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is available in our press release and earnings presentation available on the IR section of our website.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Executive Chairman, Dave Cote.

Well, we have a tale of 2 cities. CompoSecure is performing better than our expectations reflecting just excellent implementation of the Resolute operating system for both growth and operations. Husky unfortunately has encountered unanticipated market headwinds because of oil market volatility and tariffs. This has caused customers to delay accepting orders that normally would have been expected to ship in the quarter while also reducing new orders. Well, you'll likely ask what changed.

Since I spoke to you on our March 12 fourth quarter earnings call, we saw a significant and surprising increase in customers taking a wait-and-see approach in response to those changing macro conditions. At the time of the call, February year-to-date orders were up approximately 27% versus prior year and the pipeline was up approximately 6% year-over-year. The amount of book and ship required to make the quarter was not unusual given history. And in the subsequent 2.5 weeks, several customers would not finalize their orders for shipment, we could not ship to a couple of countries and customers delayed placing an official order.

This trend continues today. We can't predict when it will end so we have provided a wider revised guidance range. In anticipation of lower sales, we've taken various actions on expenses to mitigate some of the impact of those lower sales. At the same time we're seeing order delays, we saw the pipeline grow approximately 4% over last year in the first quarter and up 7% year-over-year through April. So there are reasons for optimism that this will not be a long-lived problem. Consistent with this, we're seeing the 12-month pipeline up while the 3-month pipeline is down. Husky leadership is aggressively tackling ROS implementation for both growth and operations.

The investment thesis is very much intact with their great position in a good industry. Now I'm very unhappy to be sharing a different result today than I expected when I talked to you on March 12. While certainly disappointing in the short term, I can still say with confidence that the prospects for GPGI performance are quite rewarding. CompoSecure is on a roll and the new leadership has significantly energized that team and is improving the culture. The commercial prospects for growth are better than ever and ROS implementation and operations is showing significant gains. The prospects for this business are terrific and they're apparent today.

Compo also benefits from being more than a year ahead of Husky in ROS implementation. Husky prospects are also excellent. It doesn't show right now because of the market headwinds, but it is real. We continue to fund R&D expansion because it will greatly benefit the business' future. Consistent with our underwriting thesis, we can already see that ROS will also have a profound impact on our Husky business. With Rob's leadership, they are aggressively implementing ROS and driving the cultural change necessary for success.

We will navigate the market headwinds, implement ROS, continue increasing R&D and commercial excellence and become a significantly stronger business as we exit the year. I'm also pleased to say that Kevin Moriarty, a current GPGI Board member and deeply experienced finance leader, has stepped in to be Husky's acting CFO. This is yet another benefit of having a Board of superb operators. I've worked closely with Kevin in the past and he has a tremendous reputation as an operating CFO. We are actively evaluating a long list of candidates for the full-time role.

But in Kevin, we have a proven leader who brings a steady hand to Husky and I know we'll benefit from his financial and operating capabilities. I wish we could have seen the Husky market issues sooner than we did of course. I have not looked forward to today. That being said, nothing has changed concerning GPGI and the prospects for both businesses. I'm personally energized by the progress I'm seeing in both businesses. The cultural change is well on its way at Compo and the cultural change needed at Husky is being accelerated in dealing with these unfortunate market headwinds.

We can't predict today how long the headwinds will continue so we'll be cautious in our 2026 outlook. That though shouldn't take away from what both businesses can accomplish given they both have a great position in a good industry. I can promise you GPGI has my full attention. You all know my family and I have a lot of our own money involved here so I want to see GPGI perform extraordinarily well as much as all of you do. We will get through this just like we have in the past. This is an unfortunate blip, nothing more. We're excited about the path GPGI is on and what it will become.

So with that, I'll now turn it over to Tom Knott, our Chief Investment Officer, to review our financial performance.

Thank you, Dave. Going to Slide 4. GPGI delivered pro forma adjusted net sales of $421.2 million, up approximately 3% from the prior year; pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $82.1 million, down approximately 16% from the prior year; and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins of 19.5%, down approximately 430 basis points from the prior year. As Dave mentioned, these results reflect record sales performance at CompoSecure offset by market-related underperformance at Husky. Given Husky's size relative to CompoSecure, this macro-driven delay in demand at Husky is more than offsetting excellent performance at CompoSecure.

Starting with CompoSecure. We delivered a record quarter as strategic investments in the sales force and enhanced focus on commercial excellence are driving strong organic growth supported by ROS in the factory. ROS initiatives have led to a step change in manufacturing yields and operational efficiencies throughout the production process, which were the primary drivers of adjusted EBITDA margins expanding approximately 300 basis points in the quarter.

Graham and Mary will go into more detail. But I would just highlight that CompoSecure is now 18 months of implementing the Resolute Operating System and we are pleased with the cultural and operational intensity taking hold at the company today. We expect CompoSecure to continue its strong trajectory of organic sales growth and improved profitability through the remainder of 2026.

Turning to Husky. Rob and Kevin will discuss our performance in the quarter and our outlook, but I will reiterate Dave's comments in noting that customer demand for Husky's products deteriorated rapidly at the end of March in a way that surprised us. This change more than offset the strong pipeline and order book we saw developing through the first 2 months of the year as customers aggressively shifted to a wait-and-see posture as resin prices spiked. While we expect the business to rebound when uncertainty subsides, this change in near-term demand has led us to revise our outlook for GPGI.

Turning to Slide 5. You have heard us in the past discuss the complicated accounting we are required to use. Given the transaction this quarter on top of that existing accounting complexity, Slide 5 shows a simplified walk to pro forma adjusted EBITDA. The full reconciliation appears in the appendix. As previously announced, we refinanced our debt concurrent with the transaction closing, extending maturities and materially reducing our interest burden. This is the first major component. Transaction expenses were in line with expectations and were paid through closing.

These transaction expenses taken together represent over $200 million of onetime GAAP expenses, which will not recur going forward. Net interest expense for the quarter reflects stub period interest, deferred financing cost and the interest on the new debt. Other key items include purchase price intangibles amortization, ordinary course income tax provision, noncash TRA liability remeasurement, stock-based compensation and foreign exchange impacts.

Moving to Slide 6. We're providing more details this quarter than normal to give a full picture of what we were seeing at Husky when we last spoke to you on March 12 and how things changed through the end of the quarter. Pipeline orders and backlog at Husky were trending favorably through February with positive commercial activity giving us confidence in our full year guidance for both Husky and GPGI. This momentum turned quickly late in the quarter. Orders fell 16% year-over-year to the end of March as resin prices spiked and customers delayed accepting shipments and placing orders.

Backlog followed a similar pattern in 1Q. We saw an accelerated recovery through February following a softer January, but the negative trend accelerated in the middle of March with simultaneously decline in order activity. Despite all of this, our pipelines remain strong growing 4% year-over-year for the first quarter and ending April up 7% year-over-year. Even with this healthy pipeline growth, we continue to see slower conversion rates as customers defer some purchase orders in the current environment.

Turning to Slide 7. The underlying demand drivers for our products namely nonalcoholic beverage demand remains resilient. This supports the healthy and expanding pipeline we've discussed even though near-term orders are volatile. While macro conditions have introduced significant ambiguity that is influencing near-term customer purchasing behavior, the core fundamentals of the market that Husky serves remain intact. Even though oil market volatility and its impact on resin prices is impacting customer behavior today, the volatility is also reinforcing areas where Husky products are well differentiated.

As resin prices rise, the value of our systems become increasingly compelling for customers because our equipment delivers industry-leading throughput, superior cycle times, higher preform consistency, greater uptime and lower energy consumption. All of this enables us to offer customers a 15% to 20% lower total cost of ownership versus competitive offerings. Additionally, as the price differential between virgin and recycled resin gets smaller, customers are increasingly evaluating RPET as a feedstock alternative to virgin resin.

Husky is the preeminent manufacturer of recycled PET systems, which will result in additional opportunities for new equipment sales and retrofit upgrades if customers shift to more sustainable feedstocks as an alternative to now expensive virgin resin. So while the current uncertainty is causing some customers to delay near-term purchasing decisions, we remain confident that the underlying demand driver, particularly consumption of bottled water, remains strong and that this period will drive customers to focus more on productivity, sustainability and system efficiency; all areas where Husky excels. I want to also take a moment to explain how we're responding to this challenging market environment at Husky.

On the cost side, we are in the process of implementing targeted furloughs across jurisdictions to reduce direct labor cost without impacting our industrial base or impairing our ability to respond to the rebound in demand. We are aggressively managing indirect spend and making necessary changes to be more efficient while also working towards a full return to office to maximize collaboration and increase cross-functional accountability across sales, finance and operations. On the commercial side, we are reinvigorating our sales force under new leadership thus commercial excellence is also a key strategic priority.

Husky is a little more than a year behind CompoSecure on the implementation of ROS. And while the market backdrop for our customers has changed meaningfully in a short period of time, we remain focused on doing the right things to position the business to achieve its potential. This includes making the necessary investments to accelerate innovation and long-term organic growth through aggressive expansion of the R&D organization and an unrelenting focus on ROS implementation. These critical initiatives are not stopping despite the market volatility we are facing because they will position the business to benefit from the rebound in demand and for the future more broadly.

With that, I will turn the call over to Rob Domodossola, the CEO of Husky.

Thanks, Tom. Going to Slide 8, I want to begin at the most fundamental level of what we do. Husky produces systems that make a precursor to nondiscretionary items, primarily water bottles. Demand for these products is durable with long established history of through-the-cycle growth in periods of macroeconomic volatility. The current period of volatility is no different. The demand for nonalcoholic beverages continues to expand around the world. Our customers are continuing to operate these high essential systems every day to meet this demand and that will continue.

While the current demand shock driven by steep increases in oil and resin prices has made customers delay normal purchasing behavior, the fundamental drivers of demand for our products remain solidly intact. Specifically, we currently have an installed base of 13,500 systems that are primarily used to produce nondiscretionary products. This installed base is embedded in our customers' operations and drives a large and growing aftermarket revenue stream across parts, tooling and services.

The installed base is globally diverse across developed and emerging markets and new systems have a higher content than legacy ones. Roughly 35% of our revenue is tied to new system sales, which is currently being impacted most significantly by the demand shock as customers pause large capital investments while 65% of our revenue is tied to recurring revenue. Although current market dynamics are causing near-term demand deferrals, the mission-critical nature of our products and consistent underlying demand drivers in the markets we serve gives us the confidence in a return to normalized order patterns.

Adding to our confidence, Husky is well positioned because our system delivers the lowest total cost of ownership for customers through faster cycle times, higher quality, lower energy use and maximum uptime. As higher oil and resin costs persist; our lightweight solutions, resin efficiency and system productivity enhanced by our connected Advantage+Elite remote monitoring further differentiates the value proposition of Husky's equipment relative to competitors. Taken together, we remain very focused on delivering on what matters most to our customers; uptime, output and durability at the lowest total cost.

Turning to our results. We delivered pro forma adjusted net sales of $29.8 million and pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $38.2 million, down 5% and 40% year-over-year, respectively. As Dave and Tom mentioned, the Middle East conflict altered customers' purchasing behavior nearly overnight in mid-March as supply disruptions drove sharp increases in virgin PET prices, up approximately 46% in March and April. These higher input costs combined with tighter supply and increased financing costs have weighed on near-term demand as Dave and Tom described. We view these dynamics as cyclical rather than structural.

In fact elevated material and operating costs tend to reinforce demand for efficiency, lightweighting and system level performance; all areas where Husky is highly differentiated and we've seen this pattern before. When geopolitical tensions ease and input costs stabilize, deferred investments tend to rebound and they rebound sharply. Importantly, the end markets we serve are tied to essential customer needs, which has historically proven resilient across cycles. Operationally, as Dave and Tom mentioned, we are in the early stages of implementing the Resolute Operating System and our focus is now entirely on disciplined execution.

ROS is fundamentally changing the way we operate and these changes matter even more in times like these. A key initiative we are implementing includes the integrated sales, inventory and operations or SIOP planning to improve job sequencing, manufacturing output and to reduce waste. We are also managing indirect spend and enhanced enterprise cost discipline across our procurement team. And of course AI will be an accelerator to ROS as we identify bottlenecks and improve lead times. ROS is critical to our long-term success and we are using it every day to drive measurable inputs; improvements to growth, operations and financial performance.

While the first quarter was disappointing, we know that fundamental SIOP planning efforts underway to establish a high performance culture and invest for the future are the right steps and are improving the business. Husky operates in essential categories. As macro pressures ease, we expect to see a rebound in deferred investment consistent with past cycles. Now turning to Slide 9. Given the breadth of our business, I want to cover what we're seeing in individual product lines and key geographies starting with our product lines.

Specifically in systems, orders are being deferred to the resin price volatility, tariff-related uncertainty and elevated financing costs. We expect the weakness we saw in the first quarter to continue through the year if the market headwinds persist. For aftermarket tooling, orders at the end of last year were lower due to customer uncertainty related to tariffs, which weighed on Q1 2026 sales. However, we expect this segment to return to growth in the second half as customers invest in tooling for the existing installed base while deferring the purchases of new equipment.

With respect to hot runners and controllers, we saw strong revenue growth across most regions in the first quarter, but continued market ambiguity is weighing on the order outlook in the near term. Lastly, for aftermarket parts and services, market ambiguity and tariff noise impacted demand at the end of Q1, which is expected to persist in Q2, but we expect to return to growth in the second half as customers increasingly prioritize productivity.

In our key geographies, starting in North America, we see a pause in demand for PET systems, partly offset by growth in tooling, spare parts and services. We believe North American market is close to trough levels and represents a market within our oldest installed base.

Shifting to Europe, we're seeing growth in aftermarket tooling driven by lightweighting and sustainability mandates that support further shifts to rPET adoption. For the Middle East and Africa, we see strong consumption-driven growth in PET systems and growth in hot runners for medical applications, offset by near-term geopolitical disruptions.

Turning to LatAm. Inflationary pressures and the steep tax on sugar-sweetened bottled beverages in Mexico are driving near-term softness in PT systems. While aftermarket tooling continues to grow, given shift towards lightweighting and package optimization.

Lastly, in Asia Pacific, we continue to see consumption-driven growth in PET systems and demand for hot runners tied to food and packaging and medical applications.

I will now turn it over to our acting CFO, Kevin Moriarty, to review our financial performance in more detail.

Thanks, Rob. Let's turn to our financial performance on Slide 10. Given the number of moving parts, let me level set where we landed for the quarter and our path forward. As a reminder, the first quarter is seasonally the smallest for Husky with the second half of the year typically much stronger than the first. Against this backdrop, Husky faced significant macroeconomic headwinds that weighed on both growth and profitability.

We reported pro forma adjusted net sales of $290.8 million, down 5% compared to the prior year as declines in new system sales and tooling offset strong growth in spare parts, hot runners and controllers. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA decreased 40% to $38.2 million, driven primarily by lower revenue and resulting under-absorbed labor and continued investments in R&D and front-end sales capabilities to support future growth. In aggregate, these factors translated to an approximately 770 basis point erosion in pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin to 13.2%.

As Dave, Tom and Rob all mentioned, we had over $20 million in revenue that got pushed out at the very end of the quarter. This included approximately $6 million tied to customer delays in taking deliveries, approximately $5 million tied to shipment and logistical delays tied to the Middle East conflict and approximately $4 million tied to delays in customer payments. Combined with the growth investments being made, this quantum of deferred revenue exacerbated margin degradation in the seasonally smallest quarter of the year as we carried excess labor costs relative to demand.

Consistent with historical first half and second half seasonality, we expect margins to expand in the second quarter and continue improving sequentially throughout the year, driven by improved fixed cost absorption in the seasonally stronger second half, the impact of ongoing cost actions and acceleration operational efficiencies from ROS-led initiatives. These initiatives are central to our thesis of driving sustained margin expansion and bolstering long-term profitability at Husky.

On the tariff front, after the Supreme Court invalidated IEEPA tariffs in February, the U.S. implemented modified Section 232 tariffs on April 6, 2026. While continued tariff policy pivot add uncertainty to when customers place their orders, we do not expect them to have a material impact on our results. The U.S. market represents less than 27% of our total sales, which helps moderate our overall exposure. Of this, roughly 40% of the revenue relates to systems and tooling shipped into the U.S. that is subject to a 15% tariff, 1/3 from imported aftermarket parts that have tariffs declining from 50% to 25%, and the balance is primarily hot runners, parts and services that are locally produced or delivered and therefore, not impacted.

In addition, consistent with our standard terms and conditions, we have been successfully passing through tariff-related costs to customers since the third quarter of last year and will continue to do so. Finally, our Husky equipment qualifies under USMCA and remains exempt from the 3.1% U.S. import duty, further limiting our exposure. And we are not alone when it comes to tariffs. Industry demand in the U.S. has been negatively impacted for the last 2 years. The U.S. is an importer of PET systems and Husky's primary peers do not have domestic production capability. We believe our North American presence positions us favorably relative to international peers importing into the U.S., while this tariff regime remains in place, while also allowing us to capture the inevitable cyclical upturn.

With that, I will turn the call over to Graham Robinson, the CEO of CompoSecure.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Going to Slide 11. We delivered an outstanding quarter at CompoSecure, continuing to build upon our commercial and operational momentum. We achieved record pro forma net sales of $130.4 million, up 26% year-over-year, underscoring both the effectiveness of our commercial execution and the robust demand for premium metal cards. We are seeing this strength translate into new program wins and accelerating issuer activity across leading fintechs and traditional financial institutions. We're also seeing growth in metal cards that have Arculus capabilities.

At the same time, the Resolute Operating System continues to have a deep and profound impact across the business. We are realizing meaningful improvements across all functional areas from sales performance to improved operations, which helped us deliver strong pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $47.6 million, up 37% compared to a year ago.

While we are encouraged by our progress, we remain highly focused on investing in our future, in line with our strategic and execution framework that includes 3 pillars of growth: one, accelerating organic growth; two, driving international expansion; and thirdly, increasing Arculus momentum.

In the first quarter, we saw several exciting customer programs go live, including the American Express Graphite business card, X Money from Elon Musk, the Robinhood Platinum card and Revolut Audi F1 card as well as Fold, [ Cast ], Kraken and MetaMask US, which provide crypto rewards and the optionality to pay with crypto.

These signature program wins reflect the breadth of demand for premium card solutions and our differentiated value proposition, combined with advanced design, engineering and manufacturing capabilities to reinforce our position as the partner of choice for issuers launching high-impact card programs.

Most recently, we strengthened our leadership team by appointing general managers to lead our Arculus and international businesses.

With that, I will turn it over to our CFO, Mary Holt, to review our financials in more detail.

Thank you, Graham. Let's turn to our financial performance on Slide 12. In the first quarter, CompoSecure delivered strong results across all key financial metrics, driven by continued demand strength and increasing impact of the Resolute operating system across the organization.

As Graham mentioned, adjusted net sales were $130.4 million, up 25.6% year-over-year, driven by robust demand from traditional banks and leading fintech customers. Adjusted EBITDA increased 36.8% to $47.6 million, reflecting both volume growth and meaningful operational efficiencies, which led to a 300 basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin to 36.5%. Some of these productivity gains will continue to flow through to profitability, while some will be strategically reinvested to support sustained growth.

Overall, this performance highlights the operating leverage and tangible benefits we are realizing from the systematic deployment of the Resolute Operating System, including enhanced throughput and process innovation, which has led to higher and more consistent yields at the factory level.

I will now hand it back to Tom to review GPGI's revised guidance.

Thanks, Mary. Turning to Slide 13. We are introducing new guidance for 2Q '26 and revising our full year 2026 outlook to reflect the macro-driven headwinds facing Husky. For 2Q ' 26, we expect net sales between $425 million and $475 million, pro forma adjusted EBITDA between $105 million and $120 million and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins between 24.7% and 25.3%. For FY '26, we now expect pro forma net sales between $1.95 billion and $2.1 billion, pro forma adjusted EBITDA between $550 million and $610 million and pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins between 28.2% and 29%.

Consistent with the historical trends in the seasonally lowest quarter for free cash flow and despite the market-related challenges we faced at Husky, we generated approximately $29 million of adjusted free cash flow similar to last year's level, which gives us further confidence in our revised full year estimate of between $275 million and $325 million in pro forma adjusted free cash flow. Finally, we anticipate ending the year with approximately 3x total leverage.

Our revised guidance reflects the impact of the market shock facing Husky, but we continue to view 2026 as a critical and foundational year of cultural change, ROS implementation and strategic seed planting at both businesses that will position us to deliver best-in-class top line growth, margin expansion and free cash flow generation across the GPGI platform. This remains our focus, and we are confident in the work underway at both businesses.

With that, I'll hand it back to Dave for some closing remarks.

Thanks, Tom. We've got 2 businesses in CompoSecure and Husky that hold great positions in good industries, both of which are becoming even stronger through the cultural transformations their teams are driving and the consistent deployment of the Resolute Operating System. You can see the results clearly now at CompoSecure. The market dislocation we're experiencing in Husky is making those improvements harder to see, but they are there. The culture and the business processes are getting better. We're committed to continuing the course, investing smartly for the future and the results of our efforts will become evident.

So with that, I'd like to open up the call for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jacob Stephan with Lake Street Capital Markets.

I guess, first, I just kind of wanted to understand on the guidance a little bit better and make sure I have clarification on Slide 13, you have kind of 2 arrows pointing to the high end and the low end. So the low end represents Iran conflict being delayed with the Strait disrupted and the high end would be if the conflict is resolved. I guess if you could give a little bit better sense on like timing. Does the low end of the range, I guess, assume the conflict last for the remainder of the year? Or does the high end assume that this is over to borrow? Any kind of comments you can give there?

Yes. The way I would look at it is what we're trying to reflect is the impact of delays. So if the delays continue because the Iran conflict just keeps going, then those delays are going to cause us to come into the lower end of the range. To the extent that our customers let go of those delays and maybe even if the conflict is continuing, but they stop delaying because they need the aftermarket or they need the machines, then we'll end up towards the higher end of the range. So it's more a reflection of what do we think could happen on customer delays today driven by the Iran conflict and tariffs.

Okay. Got it. And then I guess just kind of continuing on the guidance factor. When you look at kind of the second half for adjusted EBITDA, I think it implies relatively higher adjusted EBITDA in the second half. I know Q4 is a strong quarter for Husky, but we're looking at kind of $450 million to $550 million of EBITDA in the back half versus the first half. So I guess any color there, especially when you kind of talk about the margins compressing on Husky a little bit?

Sure. This is Kevin. If you look at our first half, second half; seasonally, second half represents roughly 60% of our revenue base. And again, with the cost -- better cost absorption, vertical contribution margins improving as well as the cost actions, we feel that the second half will be stronger.

Okay. And then just lastly on CompoSecure the core business there. Wondering if you could touch on the, I guess, new card launch pipeline. Is that strong looking at the kind of the last 3 quarters of the year?

Yes. The pipeline continues to be quite strong. And we speak in a number of different dimensions. The programs that we have with our existing customers, those customers are also continuing to create and generate new programs also. And then lastly, we continue to penetrate a new customer base, both internationally and domestically and also with fintechs and with our traditional banks. So we are -- we continue to be quite optimistic about the strength of the pipeline that we have and what we're seeing going forward.

Our next question comes from the line of Tomo Sano with JPMorgan.

I'd like to ask about the Husky s margin declined by 770 basis Y-o-Y in the past quarters. So looking ahead to second quarter and remainder of the year, what specific factors or initiatives do you expect will drive the margin improvement towards your full year guidance? Could you qualify the key assumptions for margin recovery in the back half, please?

Sure. So as I alluded to, the first quarter is historically are some lower revenue number. So as we sequentially go through the year, revenue will grow, which has been our historical pattern, heavier weighted to the third and fourth quarters. So the variable part contribution margin we're expecting on that is going to sequentially improve the margin rate. We're driving the ROS initiatives internally, which we expect to provide some lift as well as we've commented on cost actions that we're taking. We institute some furloughs as well as some indirect cost actions that we're also expecting to provide some lift.

And a follow-up regarding leveraging the ROS to drive the margin improvement for Husky. Could you share some examples of the cultural changes and operational opportunities being executed to enhance resilience and profitability, please?

Sure. Maybe I'll start. It's Robert. One of the biggest things is what I mentioned, the SIOP process is really intended to level out the factories. It's hard to keep your costs under control if you have peaks and valleys. But with level loading of the factories, it's much easier to get the labor and material costs aligned with the volume that's coming out of the factories. So that's one of the biggest initiatives that we have right now. With reduced lead times, that also helps to level load the factories, not just making us more competitive, but more profitable as well.

We have a significant focus on supply chain procurement excellence that's helping with material cost reduction. And finally, on the commercial excellence side, our whole go-to-market approach, we are taking steps to have some very effective value propositions globally rolled out, especially with regards to our new product launches.

Thank you. And I'm currently showing no further questions at this time. This does conclude today's call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Welcome, everybody, to kicking off the -- at least for my part of the session here, the 2026 JPMorgan Industrials Conference, new and improved from Washington, D.C. And we're starting off with a very special panel calling it a legends panel with Dave Cote, who you all know, has a storied career in and around the electrical and multi-industry -- electrical equipment and multi-industry world and most recently, Executive Chairman of GPGI, which we'll get into in a little bit as well as Tom Knott, who's the Chief Investment Officer of the company.

But I really wanted to kind of start this by taking a bit of a step back. And maybe, Dave, in this environment, if you think back to putting your operating hat back on as CEO of a multinational company with this kind of backdrop and what's most recently happened, what do you think is going through CEO's minds right now? Is this to the point where there start to be contingency plans put together? What do you think is happening in the boardroom these days with what's happening at least with the -- in the Middle East?

Yes, I would say it's tough for me to speak for other CEOs. And who knows that can be pretty varied what's going through their minds and what's in their industry. But I'm happy to share what's going through my mind. Sure.

Absolutely.

I actually think the economy is better than a lot of the media give it credit for. And there's always ups and downs, puts and takes. But I don't think the economy is all that bad. Depending on where Iran goes, I suppose you could end up with a recession at some point. But I don't see that thing going really badly. It could very well be that it goes on longer than we'd like, that it's not the quick resolution that we'd like. But I don't see it turning into a tragedy. There's always a probability that, that could happen or a possibility that could happen. I don't see it as especially probable. So I'm not that negative on the economy. I actually think things are not all that bad.

And when you -- you've been one of the few CEOs out there, at least that we've seen publicly that's gone from being an operator to an investor, more or less, I would say, in the last several years. I mean you're not running these companies.

Not exactly, but I'm not exactly casual either.

I can only imagine. But I guess what is -- talk about that transition and maybe how you view things, how you have to view things a little bit differently in the roles that you've taken on versus the more -- seem to be a lot more blocking and tackling at Honeywell, where there was a little more of a fix a job there, too. So maybe just a bit of a contrast and compare.

Yes, I would say, at Honeywell, I had to spend a lot more time doing it. And it was a much bigger company because we had $45 billion in sales, 135,000 employees, 100 countries. So I had to travel a lot, and I had to be out there a lot myself. So that was pretty time consuming. So I always said that you couldn't really understand what was happening at the top unless you had a really good understanding of what your people on the ground were doing and saying and thinking. And I oftentimes felt that it was important to get out there to tour a factory, meet with customers or the sales guys.

So they knew that I knew what they did was important. And there's a lot of messaging that goes on just by showing up. It's really surprising. It's also surprising how few CEOs actually do it. So I spent a lot of time doing that. And there's a lot of day-to-day to your point. Meetings are pretty much jampacked. You probably know about the blue book exercises that I used to do in the X days to make sure that I got time to think.

So the job is different now. Maybe talk about that for 1 second, delve into that for a couple of minutes, the exercise, how you kind of really -- how you looked at a portion of your time to make sure you were focusing on the things that had the most impact and the most value. Yes. I would say it's very easy when you get into a position of leadership to become a victim of your calendar, and everybody throws stuff on. And any of your people who are pretty bright are going to learn to get along with your secretary really well, your executive administrator so that they can get on your calendar when they need to by just schmoozing your EA a bit.

As a result of that, if you don't control your calendar, it ends up controlling you. And I'd say that happens to most leaders that I've run into. So there were a number of things that I would do. And by the way, I always thought Donald Rumsfeld, love him or hate him. I know he didn't make this one up, but this line, I always thought was terrific because beware of letting the urgent get in the way of the important. We all have a tendency to do that. We know this is a big thing we need to do. But oh, I got to make this call. I got to send -- finish my e-mail. I got to get the shipment out. I got to get the order and you get consumed by the day-to-day stuff.

So what I used to do at the beginning of every year is I'd go through my whole calendar and about 3 days a month, I'd put an X through it. And I would tell my EA, you're not allowed to schedule anything for that day. That is my day. I'm going to do whatever the hell I want that day, and I'll determine when I get there. Now some of those you lose because things do happen. And there are some days where the day before and next day, you find yourself with a series of 30-minute meetings just trying to get through everything. But as a result of that, you end up with a couple of days a month where you can do what you want. And I would do things like make surprise visits to factories or facilities where even [ Lowis ], my assistant didn't know I was going because I wanted to be very certain nobody knew I was showing up.

I might decide to go visit customers. And about 2 to 3 days a year, I would take what I call my blue book exercise day. And I called the blue book because I just had this little blue notebook that I happened to carry around with me. And I would force myself to just think. And I might have 3 or 4 pieces of paper that I might use in order to stimulate various thoughts. But I would just think and I would think about countries, economies, my people, businesses, industries I might want to be in, which for somebody like me, is almost painful to do because you want to be doing something, you're kind of consumed by the need to do something.

And to say, no, I'm just going to think. And as I make notes to myself, I'm going to follow up on them and pursue it. Well, it's really interesting what comes out of a lot of those days. Like for me, the whole Honeywell operating system came out of one of those days. the focus on number of leaders and saying that if I could control that, I could control the bureaucracy in the company. There's a number of things that came up just analyzing the portfolio to say what was time to let something go.

So there's a number of things that came out of that, but it's a tough thing for a leader to do because, again, you get so consumed by the day-to-day that it makes it tough to just sit and think and to think by yourself and not have 10 people around you helping you think and stimulating ideas. But I found that worked out -- that worked very well for me during the course of the 16 years at Honeywell.

And when you think about -- you're still obviously engaged, as you said, with Vertiv and you obviously -- you didn't really take a step back and play golf, sit by the pool after you retire from Honeywell. What do you see as this kind of the current generation of CEO, where have you seen maybe those that are better performing, those that haven't quite lived up to the expectation? What do you -- are there some common threads there that we as investors should be looking out for during those types of transitions? Because obviously, I mean publicly, Vertiv, you guys made a change there. So what were maybe some of the things we as investors should look out for during those transitions? Who are the most successful guys these days?

Yes. I would -- well, first of all, I'd like to see the standard distribution in everything. So even if you look at like the S&P 500 and CEO performance, there's a standard distribution to that also because just because you're an S&P 500 CEO, it doesn't mean you actually know what you're doing. So...

It's like the sell side.

I'm sorry -- we...

Tighter. Much tighter.

We know where you...

So at the end of the day, I mean, finding the right leader makes a lot of difference. And I'm a big believer that if you can get that great position in a good industry, hence, GPGI, and put the right kind of leader in place, the leader is going to generate the culture that you're looking for and culture matters a lot. So a big believer first, you got to have a great position in a good industry because that's the backdrop against which everything can happen. You get a really good leader in there. It makes all the difference in driving the culture and the results.

So what makes for a good leader? I wish I could discern that in an interview. And I've oftentimes said I'm okay as an interviewer, but it's not my particular strength. What I am good at is being able to, after 2 or 3 months, determine, okay, does somebody have it or not in the job. So I would say it's one of the good things I'd say that I kind of got is, I won't be diluted for very long. I'll try to work with somebody. But at the end of the day, if they're not driving change and not getting results -- early, and not one of these, hey, it's going to be great in 3 years, but it's going to be great in 3 years, and here's what you're going to see in 6 months because you're going to start to see it already.

Some might call that winning now, winning later. That's a lead for you, Steve.

Yes. We'll get to that, I guess.

But what you want to be able to do is somebody needs to be able to say it's not going to be great in 3 years and you're just going to look like hell for a long time, then it's going to be great. They've got to be able to show progress. And I often refer to them as inch stones. So you want these inch stones that show, here's how you're going to make it happen.

The other thing along those lines that I look for is somebody who starts to create that drumbeat of daily management. And you think about one of the foundations of like what we call the Resolute Operating System now, a lot of that is just daily management create that daily drumbeat so that whatever big initiatives you're driving, you don't check on it once a quarter. You're getting a sense every day that people are working on it, that they're driving and making that difference. But the thing I wish I could discern in an interview that I've been unable to, is a capacity to grow.

You take a look at Giordano Albertazzi, for example, now the CEO, very successful CEO of Vertiv. When Tom and I first met them because Tom was at Goldman Sachs, and we did the SPAC together that acquired Vertiv, I can remember us talking after we met with Gio in Europe, geez, I'm not sure this guy is going to make it. Gave him some early challenges and he made them. Then said, geez, let's try them in the Americas, and he did well. And then said, geez, maybe we had to take a chance on them for the big job, largely because the CEO who was there, quite honestly, wasn't getting the job done and refused to move to Columbus, even though we had a company in crisis at the time.

So I thought, well, Gio seems to be doing well. I'll take a chance on him. He's been just tremendous. And he has responded to coaching like nothing I've ever seen. As soon as like there was nobody above him so that it was just the two of us kind of talking about stuff and where things needed to go, he would grab a hold of it and make it happen in ways that just -- he'd make me feel great. It was like, okay, my kids won't listen to me, but at least Gio does. This is -- this is tremendously rewarding, and he would make things happen. And that ability to make things happen to truly make change now, not 6 months from now, not a year from now, but you actually start to see it soon. Man, that's the thing you want to look for.

I'm sure you guys are still relatively bullish on the Vertiv thesis. What do you think is still underestimated by investors about where that company is going, putting aside $8 billion in orders in the fourth quarter. What do you think is the most important thing that people continue to not appreciate?

Yes, I'd say the one thing I continue to underestimate about investors is their ability to panic. It's really something we're seeing at GPGI now. I just kind of shake my head. We went through the same thing at Vertiv. We still go through it periodically. Oh my God, it's a bubble. Oh my God, Amazon came up with something. Oh my God, there's a China thing. And it's like nobody thinks they just sell and the stock goes down and you look at it and say, okay, well, stupid, but their money, I guess, not much I can do about it. So that just surprises -- continues to surprise me about Vertiv is as well as it's doing right now, there'll be some blip in news at some point that will cause it panic and everybody starts to say, oh my God, it's a bubble, it's a bubble. I've been reading, it's a bubble, I've read it's a bubble. I 've heard it's a bubble, it could be a bubble. And before you know it, it's like the herd just scares itself. And I don't -- if there is a bubble, I think it's still a ways off before it gets pierced.

Well, people keep bringing up the DeepSeek moment. They say, well, what's the DeepSeek moment? And it's like the DeepSeek moment was just one gigantic buying opportunity in the end. It wasn't really a moment. It was the start of the inflection more or less.

Well, that's one -- I mean, I can remember reading the DeepSeek news and saying, this is good for us because this means that if it's less expensive, people are going to use more of it, and oh, it's going to be great. And then we started crashing and what -- does anybody connect dots? It's really surprising sometimes.

So maybe we get on to the new investment here and give you a chance to pitch a little bit around that. Just a little bit of background on what the thesis is and where you're going with it?

Well, when Tom and I first did Vertiv and Tom was the Goldman Sachs lead for them. He and I talked a lot about how if we looked in the private equity model, they -- most of them talked about how they had operating expertise, and that's how they differentiated themselves. But I said more than once, I never saw one that actually had it. I mean they might hire some CEOs from various places, many of which weren't all that successful, but they were advisers. I was an adviser at one point. I was kind of surprised at how little anybody listened to anything I had to say. It was kind of like being at home again.

And I thought, okay, well, I'm not sure how well this model works. And Tom had this interesting point about permanent capital, about how if you took a look at PE firms, they couldn't really invest in a good business for the long term. They were always kind of stuck having to think about exiting right away, which also concerned their operating practices because if something was going to take 3 or 4 years to get done, you probably weren't going to spend a lot of time doing it. So we talked about was there some way to marry a permanent capital with superb operating practices.

We actually -- after he left Goldman, we worked on a couple of things, a couple of ideas, which didn't work out. And then CompoSecure became available, and we heard about it through JPMorgan, just so make Ked happy over there. We heard about it from them and said, oh, this could be a way to inexpensively create a permanent capital vehicle that we could then use superb operating practices with the right kind of Board so that we've got something that would really be superb overall and fill a real niche in the market, which Tom can go into even better than I can in terms of how private equity is stuck today.

So we acquired majority interest in CompoSecure, started doing very well with it, made a lot of people who didn't deserve a lot of money. But at the end of the day, we started growing pretty well.

Can you [ expand ] on that?

They didn't, but they got it. And Tom and I started talking about, is there a way to create a management agreement here so that we have an asset management company that's aligned with it so that we can maintain a core of some expertise at Resolute Holdings, have an asset management company, and with GPGI, have basically no overhead. So there's no CEO, no CFO. There's nothing above it. As a way of being a significant attraction for people who are really good operators. And we started talking about it as, hey, this is a chance to do what the Wall Street Journal referred to as Honeywell 2.0. And you take a look at everything that we dealt with in Honeywell. So we beat the S&P 500 by about 2.5x over 16 years. Yet we did it by carrying 5 boat anchors through the process.

First one was we had really bad accounting practices and bad distribution -- distributor practices to close the quarter. We had a significantly underfunded pension plan, a defined benefit plan that I had to take care of. Asbestos liabilities, neither recognized nor dealt with; environmental liabilities neither recognized nor dealt with. And if you take a look at the original $22 billion in sales we started with, I sold off $8.5 billion of it because it didn't even come close to a great position in a good industry.

Here, we get to start with what we want. So thinking back to the acquisition profile that we had at Honeywell, where we had the 6 criteria. We always looked at great position, good industry, tech differentiation, organic and inorganic sales growth and margin expansion, we had that possibility here to start from scratch with the things that we wanted. And with the asset management company, we did get some multiple arbitrage out of the exact same earnings, but the foundation of all of it was GPGI as the currency and the vehicle.

You saw us put that into motion with Husky, and we were able to use our shares as a currency in addition to the cash that we generated as a way of acquiring Husky, which is going to turn out to be a very good business for us. And we'll be able to do it with others. So we're able to start with businesses we like. We have this growth day mentality that we use. It's the same thing that I did at Honeywell. We've got it at Vertiv. We're doing it at CompoSecure and at Husky, the monthly growth day, where we take strategy and make it a daily activity. So you start with businesses you like, put in leaders who truly are going to lead the businesses and establish the culture that you're looking for, put those growth days in place and GPGI is going to do very well.

Now Resolute only does well if GPGI does well. And I know there's always some questions about that one, but I'm not sure what I understand why there's a question. So we feel pretty bullish about where this is going. We're quite surprised by the reaction last week. I was talking with Kurt Martinson about it earlier. Shocked actually at the reaction last week when we posted our earnings, I thought it was going to go the other way around, which it will. So I'd say now is a buying opportunity.

I see this as a good time, Tom, for, I think, you to jump in to talk about why this is so appealing, especially for the PE guys, why it worked with Husky, et cetera.

Yes. So I'll first just say, I mean, I think GPGI, Dave and I have always said, the entire goal of all of this is how do we buy businesses with great positions in good industries, deploy the operating system into them consistently to drive above-market revenue, EBITDA, EPS and cash flow relative to the very best-in-class industrials. That is the point of the business. And I think the structure will lend itself to that because we've observed that some of the larger businesses that are diversified, they begin to run into problems when they lose focus on underlying businesses. They stop pushing the businesses to be all they can be and they start thinking incrementally.

Well, this structure where there's no corporate overhead at all, there's no CEO, CFO, allows us to focus exactly on each business. CEO and CFO of each business own that. They're responsible for going out and making the businesses be what they can be. I would also say we went to great lengths to put a significant amount of our own capital in. I think that's got more than $1 billion invested into GPGI. So we are the biggest individual investors in the company, and that was important to us. So that was the foundation of it. But why now? Why is this such a unique opportunity? And we've -- I've been trafficking and looking at businesses in private equity portfolios of real scale since 2018.

I mean I started looking at it when we launched Vertiv because we recognized back then the real areas that were challenging were businesses that private equity firms owned that were large enough to need to go public for an exit. And I think you've had an interesting dynamic develop over the last 20 years where for a long time, the fundraising capacity of private equity seemed to be boundless. They were raising bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger funds, and so they were buying bigger and bigger and bigger businesses, almost thinking that there would always be a bigger fund to buy it from them.

Well, that has now slowed or stopped. And you have businesses that are $300 million, $400 million, $500 million, $600 million, $1 billion of EBITDA, where there isn't a fund big enough to buy it. Or if there is, maybe it's one or two and the competition is not enough and you actually can go map multiples paid. If you look at businesses $50 million to $150 million of EBITDA, the multiples for the exact same business profile are 2x, 3x, 4x higher than when you get to $300 million, $400 million, $500 million. And that's because of a competitive dynamic that's a problem. You look at businesses that are private equity owned and they are employing 6x to 7x leverage. That does not work for a public listing. And so what you have is you have this big and growing list of very high-quality businesses, almost high quality in spite of being levered for a very long time and having to make operating trade-offs that don't make sense for those businesses. They're still good businesses.

But if you have to take that business public as a sponsor, which you're being forced to consider now because there aren't funds big enough to buy it, you cannot raise enough capital in an IPO to delever the business to an appropriate public company amount and not still own 80% or 90% of the stock. What does that create? It means if you take those businesses public, they're going to be zombie companies because you've got a forced seller for a very long time whose only incentive is to sell.

Why GPGI works so well is we have a good track record of identifying businesses that actually do have great positions in good industries. That is really important because you have to have a great position in the good industry to make the work around deploying the operating system be worth it. You've got to have a market structure in a position that allows you to capture the benefits of the proven operating system. But we can find great businesses that we really like. We can buy them at prices that perhaps are even lower than where the private equity firm has been marked or would otherwise sell them because we can deliver significantly more capital that provides GPGI, a return of capital, which is top of mind for every private equity fund in the world.

The investors are saying, give me my money back. Well, we can do that. We can delever the business to an appropriate level where it's public company, reasonable and appropriate. And then we can allow them to retain stake in an overall business that has other businesses that are great positions in good industries where their stake is not an overhang on the stock. So in the Husky transaction, none of our investors cared about what Platinum did with their shares because it was 19% of the business. They said, we actually like more liquidity in the stock. We think that's a good thing.

That compared to if they had gone public regular way and owned 80% or 90%, it's a totally different conversation. And so right now, we believe that there's a structural opportunity where there are not homes for businesses that are very high quality, that are of scale that have been private equity owned. We think we provide a really, really transformative solution, and we know we can deliver once we own them because we've got a proven operating system and a proven capital structure to go and do that.

And how wide is the diversity of opportunity on the acquisition front? I mean, I don't think -- I don't know the business well. It's covered by Reggie Smith at JPMorgan. He's the expert here. So if anybody is interested, give me a shout. The diversity of opportunity, I mean, these 2 businesses don't really look like they belong together. So you really have a wide birth, if you will, to find these assets.

Yes. The way that we've talked about it is it's going to be any industry or business where all of you as investors would look at it and say, yes, with the backgrounds they bring, that makes sense. So that's a pretty wide variety of things and allows us a pretty good breadth of opportunity when it comes to how do you find a great position in a good industry because it's aerospace, controls, it's not going to be automotive. Could be some chemicals, could be health care where there's manufacturing or services involved, any kind of service business. I think you'd have to look at it and say, with the backgrounds these guys bring, they've operated businesses in those areas, so that would make sense. So the big thing will be that credibility and then being able to show you that it's GPGI.

Yes. But you want to stay within a certain size, obviously, this is -- or not really?

No, we've looked at stuff in the $1.5 billion, $2 billion EBITDA range.

And again, there's a real structural problem if you're trying to take those businesses public as a private equity firm. Our view is we can sit down with any private equity owner for their best assets that they want to take public. And we think we can deliver a much better outcome while offering a lower price for the asset because it doesn't work well to have an 80% or 90% owner to then sell down over time. It just doesn't work.

And so a lower upfront price with more capital allows them to roll less but benefit more from a re-rating. And that's a powerful tool, and we think we can do it, and there's a lot of opportunities and they continue to grow because some of these really good businesses keep getting larger.

In terms -- sorry, in terms of proof of concept, if you take a look at the $2.1 billion in equity that we raised to do Husky, we did it in 3 weeks, and we didn't use a bank, no offence, Ked, but we didn't use a bank. We were able to do this on our own. And I think that's pretty challenging when it says the kind of interest there is out there in the model that we've created.

What -- how far would you stretch leverage for the right deal?

That's one where we're a little careful because at the end of the day, if you want a good public company, you got to have a good debt profile. So we felt comfortable enough at [ 3.5x ] and being able to bring it down. And we want to maintain fidelity with our bond investors in addition to our equity investors. So whatever we did do, we would construct in a way that maintained a sound debt profile.

But ultimately, the multiple that you're kind of targeting is really kind of the classical compounder, if you will. That's how you'd like to be viewed over the long term.

Honeywell 2.0. We -- keep it going.

Yes. Our view and why we're doing this is we want to deliver better than the best-in-class compounders organic growth, top line and earnings and cash flow. And we think we can do it because you're able to buy really good businesses that have as cyclical exposures, deploy the operating system into them. There's real benefit to that, and we think we can do it. And we're doing it here with these 2, and there's more out there that are available, and we'll -- we don't need them. We can be very disciplined, and we're going to be. We're going to find businesses we like that make sense for GPGI at the right time. If not, we'll just operate these 2, and we know we can compound this.

Now the obvious question that comes from that is, well, wait a minute, is that kind of building a conglomerate and isn't there an anti-conglomerate push right now? And I always say I found it kind of interesting that the world loves focusing on industrial conglomerates, but media conglomerates, financial conglomerates, those are okay. I don't quite understand why there's such a difference there. But either way, one of the things that we were able to say at Honeywell when confronted by the same question is, the argument from investors is, look, you can't pick the sectors. Let us pick the sectors. So break it up, then we can pick what sectors we want to be in.

My argument back on that always was, well, that's true as long as you can beat the S&P 500, which, as you probably know, a lot of investors don't, not to say that any of you in the room, but a number of investors can't. So if you have a company that can, now it has a reason to exist. So they're able to -- that company is able to make those kinds of decisions to trade-offs, where to invest, where to sell, where to buy a company. And I think our proof point at Honeywell was, again, we beat the S&P 500 by 2.5x over 16 years. And that's proven out to be pretty darn good. That's going to be where we're going with this, to Tom's point. You'll see us consistently beating the S&P 500 when it comes to the earnings and cash we generate because that's the reason for a conglomerate to exist.

And it's interesting because Honeywell was a lot of -- like you said, there were the 5 anchors and removing those 5 anchors were pretty big. Vertiv was definitely more of a growth story, and this seems like a pure-play growth story, if you will. This seems like it's something -- it's growthy. It's -- you're building the business.

We can pick what we want. Yes. I would say Vertiv had its share of problems, which have been -- I mean, there was at one point, I always said, okay, I'm going to devote about a day a month -- a week to this overall. And at one point, when we were going through the price troubles, it was more like 2 to 3 days a week to try to get it out of its trouble. So we had more than our share of issues there, but we've been able to resolve it. Here, we're starting with businesses that we really like that are not run poorly, but have a lot of upside to them and with good leaders right from the very beginning.

So Rob Domodossola that we now have in Husky; Graham Robinson, who a number of us knew from Honeywell is running CompoSecure. Our Board, by the way, if you were to look at our Board of GPGI, all people who have run stuff. We don't have a bunch of lawyers and academics. We've got people who have run stuff. They know how to operate a business.

And I think just the model separating the two, the focus on each business, like there is nowhere to hide, and we are maniacally focused on helping each business achieve what's possible. And that is a really unique structure. I think the private equity world has grown quite significantly doing that well. They have the manager in each business. This is permanent capital, lower leverage, true operating capability, daily liquidity for investors, and we think much better returns, and we're very excited about that.

Any questions out there? Maybe a chance to plug the book since you brought it up. And anything we didn't talk about that comes out of the book that you really want to highlight and tease people to go out and enjoy the [indiscernible]?

Oh, they should buy that [indiscernible]. If they want to know what we're doing, where we're going, read the book, and you'll -- because at Vertiv, they hand it out and just say, if you want to know what we're doing, just read this. It happened at CompoSecure also, it's started to happen at Husky. The book is relevant, except for the chapter on succession, you can -- but the other 9 chapters, feel free to read those. You'll find those pretty handy, pretty useful.

That's pretty tough. Thank you so much for making the effort to get in here from Atlanta. I know that was a little bit of a choppy one, but...

Quite a morning, yes.

Congrats on all the success, and thank you so much. Best of luck.

Thanks, guys.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GPGI, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker host for today, Sean Mansouri, Investor Relations for GPGI. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to GPGI's conference call today. where we will review GPGI's fourth quarter 2025 financial results. With me on the call are the business leaders from GPGI, Resolute Holdings, CompoSecure and Husky. We will begin with prepared remarks and then open the call for Q&A.

During the call, we will make statements related to our business that may be considered forward-looking, including statements about our growth strategy, customer demand, our ability to maintain existing and acquire new customers; implementation of the Resolute operating system and our guidance for 2026, as well as other statements regarding our plans and prospects.

For a discussion of material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to the information in our annual report on Form 10-K and other reports filed with the SEC which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website and on the SEC's website at sec.gov.

Please note that effective as of February 28, 2025, and the date of the spin-off of Resolute Holdings management and as a result of the management agreement between Resolute Holdings management and GPGI's fully owned subsidiary, GPGI Holdings LLC, the results of operations of GPGI Holdings and the operating companies, which are its subsidiaries are not consolidated in the financial statements of GPGI and instead are accounted for under the equity method ofaccounting. For more information about our financial presentation, please see our annual report on Form 10-K.

In the earnings release we issued earlier today, and in the discussion on today's call. We also present non-GAAP financial measures to help investors better understand our operating performance. The company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information to management and investors regarding certain financial and business trends impacting the company's financial condition and results of operations.

These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as an alternative to performance measures derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP and may be different from similarly titled non-GAAP measures used by other companies. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is available in our press release and earnings presentation available on the IR section of our website. Thank you.

And with that, let me turn the call over to Executive Chairman, Dave Cote.

Good morning, everyone. Before we get into the fourth quarter and full year results, I want to begin with a more detailed overview of what we are building at GPGI to provide more context on the platform and our objectives going forward. Now this is going to be a longer introduction than you can expect in the future as we want to clearly articulate our strategy and structure on this first earnings call as GPGI.

There will also be longer presentations from each business for the same reason than you will see in the future. GPGI is a diversified multi-industry platform that was purpose-built to acquire and operate companies that hold great positions in good industries, representing the acronym behind our new name. Following the completion of our acquisition of Husky, GPGI now owns 2 high-quality, market-leading businesses with best-in-class financials and durable growth profiles. Importantly, we believe Compo and Husky have opportunities to benefit from the systematic deployment of the Resolute operating system, ROS. And that work is already underway at both businesses.

Our vision for the GPGI platform is to help Compo, Husky and businesses we may acquire in the future, achieve their full potential by combining GPGI's permanent capital base with the systematic deployment of the Resolute operating system and implementation of a high-performance culture. This idea to marry permanent capital with superior operating practices began years ago when Tom and I first partnered together and ultimately acquired Vertiv. With the creation of GPGI, we are now refining this approach and believe it represents a needed innovation in the marketplace that is well positioned today and for the future.

Going to Slide 5. We have our business leaders on the call today, and you will hear directly from both the Compo and Husky teams regarding their respective businesses. Before getting there, I want to highlight how we think about GPGI's long-term growth algorithm. Specifically, we're focused on delivering mid- to high single-digit annual organic growth, over 100 basis points of annual margin expansion through the deployment of ROS, double-digit plus annual EBITDA growth and 90% to 100% free cash flow conversion over time.

The plan is simple. We intend to grow GPGI's earnings and cash flow faster than the market to deliver superior durable through-the-cycle returns for our investors. That is the whole point of GPGI.

On Slide 6, which you have seen before, we outlined the relationship between GPGI and Resolute Holdings. They are intentionally inextricably linked. The success of Resolute Holdings is tied to the success of GPGI. We designed the structure to empower the leadership teams of each acquired business to operate with all the benefits of permanent capital but without the constraints that often come with a bureaucracy of typical public company corporate infrastructure.

This allows us to help with the efficient implementation of ROS M&A strategy and capital allocation without distracting leadership teams at each business. A final point. I've mentioned on previous calls how confusing the accounting we are required to use is. To keep it simple, you should evaluate GPGI's performance by looking at the core non-GAAP operating results, which includes the deduction from the management fee paid to Resolute. GPGI is the operating company.

Conversely, RHLD's results reflect that same management fee income less its own operating expenses. It is the asset management company. It really is pretty simple, entirely complexified by the accounting were required to use.

Moving to Slide 7. The value creation playbook at GPGI marries disciplined underwriting from a permanent capital base with operating excellence to drive superior performance. We do this by relentlessly implementing the Resolute operating system, developing a truly high-performance culture at each business and investing with discipline in assets that meet our tried and true 6 investment criteria. We have a structural advantage for acquisitions.

And on the right side, you can see it works. The Resolute operating system with a high-performance culture applied to businesses that have a great position in a good industry works quite effectively. The strategy is not new. It's one we have consistently deployed and delivered across multiple public companies over the years.

Turning to Slide 8, establishing a high-performance culture is central to the value creation process. A high-performance culture does not just happen. It involves people and process. It starts with everyone focusing on what is right for the customer. Every company talks about the customer, but few focus their entire culture on it. I will not go through each item on the page. It involves starting with the customer than aggressively setting expectations making strategy and people daily instead of annual activities, regularly measuring performance and providing candid and direct feedback.

These are the process pillars of how cultures begin to transform. These are the tools that help foster high-performance cultures and teams, which in turn are what ultimately deliver results. We are intentionally embedding these norms across GPGI and view a high-performance culture as foundational to maximizing the potential impact of ROS in each business.

When everyone across the business buys in, that's attitude, and fully applies these ROS principles to good businesses, that's aptitude. This is how we achieve performance and deliver results and at altitude. It is not just about a great attitude. You have to have something fundamentally strong to apply it to. Hence, the need for GPGI, great positions in good industries.

Moving to Slide 9. The Resolute operating system is our proprietary approach to operating businesses. It's an adaptation of the Toyota production system. It really comes down to 3 areas of focus: growing sales, controlling costs and generating the cash necessary for seat planning and delivering returns for investors.

Starting with growing sales. Our approach is centered around our customers, delivering end-to-end commercial excellence and continuing to innovate on new products and services that meet and exceed customer demand. This strategy is made possible by a capital structure that allows us to prioritize investments in R&D for new products and services and provide support to the go-to-market functions to appropriately cover the markets we serve.

On the cost side, we worked diligently to identify and implement robust reporting around fixed and variable costs to drive efficiencies and ensure our fixed costs stay flat or grow much slower than sales. The fall-through of the variable margin rates in our businesses is impressive. So being able to retire fixed cost growth relative to sales growth enables a huge amount of flexibility for us.

Taken together, we improved cash generation with greater profitability, which allows us to invest more back into the business to drive more innovation and growth, while concurrently being able to deliver returns for investors. The flywheel begins spinning when these investments drive growth that delivers increasing profit through necessary cost controls, which in turn enables more investment growth than profits.

This is the add of making the right decisions for each business today and for the long-term at the same time. Some might even call it winning now, winning later.

Shifting to Slide 10. I want to spend some time on how we think about implementing ROS in our underlying businesses. ROS is the operational cornerstone of every GPGI business, and it consists of 3 phases. We start with a period of seed planting where we laid the foundation for excellence. This represents the time immediately after we acquire a business where monthly growth days and deployment of our playbook of best practices across all functions begins.

The second phase is where we continue making strategic investments to catalyze growth and innovation, implement lean principles and firm up cultural change from top to bottom. The third phase is where everything comes together in a culture of continuous improvement powers the flywheel necessary for a long-term compounding.

The key is that ROS is not a one-and-done activity. It is a daily mindset for sustaining performance over time, and it's in every function. We are just beginning this journey with Husky, and while we are encouraged by our early efforts, there remains significant opportunity to continue the work underway at both Compo and Husky.

Starting on Slide 11 to demonstrate how an operating transformation begins. We have a case study compiled on CompoSecure's performance since we got involved. From the time we made our initial investment in the company, we deployed ROS to catalyze growth, control costs and make strategic investments in the business. Over the past 5 quarters, you can see these efforts are beginning to take hold and drive a phased inflection in financial performance.

We're pleased with this early progress at Compo, but also know there is a lot more to achieve there over time. However, the inflection in performance you've been able to see, both top and bottom line performance is what cultural transformation paired with the deployment of the operating system is designed to do. This is the same approach we are taking at Husky, and we know that deploying ROS consistently across each business, while helping to cultivate a high-performance culture is a winning formula. And one we will apply to all GPGI businesses.

With that, I'll turn it over to Tom Knott, our Chief Investment Officer, to review our investment philosophy.

Thanks, Dave. I want to begin this section about our investment philosophy by explaining how we think about acquisitions. Fundamentally, we view acquisitions as opportunities and are focused on using the same discipline that we have used in the past for every opportunity we evaluate in the future. Deals must make sense, both in terms of business quality and in terms of valuation.

We built GPGI to encourage the discipline, specifically because we have no deployment targets or timing pressure to acquire new businesses. We are very enthusiastic about the 2 businesses we currently own and believe in the opportunity to deliver strong organic top and bottom line performance with a continued focus on ROS implementation and cultural transformations underway at each company.

This is where we focus much of our day-to-day efforts and having good businesses with rich organic opportunities ahead is a great place from which to operate. While we are constantly evaluating potential investment opportunities for GPGI, we will only acquire additional platform businesses if they solidly meet our 6 investment criteria and if they can be acquired at a fair price.

Today, we do believe GPGI is uniquely positioned as a structurally advantaged acquirer of the increasing number of high-quality private businesses that need to access the public markets and that can benefit from our operating system. This universe consists of family-owned businesses, noncore divisions of public companies and a significantly growing number of businesses owned by private equity firms.

We are confident in our platform's ability to offer superior outcomes for each of these different types of businesses. but we see the largest opportunity today among private equity firms that need to monetize their investments to return capital to their investors. Specifically, we are confident that our platform can deliver transactions that result in a win-win for both GPGI and a selling private equity firm that is superior relative to a traditional IPO.

The list of large, high-quality private equity-owned businesses that need to reach the public market is growing, and as a result, our platform is well positioned as a unique solution. This paired with the excellent organic prospects for CompoSecure and Husky allows us to be selective as we evaluate potential businesses to add to the GPGI platform in the future.

Wrapping up my comments with Slide 13. I believe it is important to again review the 6 investment criteria we use to evaluate businesses. It is how we look at companies, and it's important to discuss so that investors and potential sellers know what is important to us.

As we have said before, we want GPGI to be an aspirational home for market-leading businesses, which must operate in a good industry, have a great position in that industry, differentiate with technology, can grow both organically and inorganically and have the potential for significant margin expansion.

This list is what we measure for each potential acquisition and it's one that we will remain consistent in applying. From Dave's time at Honeywell to my involvement with Myriam to our partnership on Vertiv, CompoSecure and now with Husky, this approach is proven and serves as a highly effective screen for selecting high-quality businesses that can generate superior investor returns.

With that, I will turn the call over to Graham Robinson, the CEO of CompoSecure.

Thank you, Tom. As announced in January, I recently joined as President and Chief Executive Officer of CompoSecure. In my short time here, it has become quickly evident that this is the most dynamic and compelling business that I have been involved with. The company has already proven its strategy with a differentiated value proposition, and we are now in a position to accelerate growth with disciplined execution. I am delighted to lead our expanding teams on this journey.

Turning to Slide 16. We delivered strong organic growth and profitability in the fourth quarter and for fiscal year 2025, driven by disciplined execution, operational focus, and the continued support from the Resolute team and the Board on our strategic initiatives. Mary Holt, our CFO, will go into more detail on the quarter later. But I would note Net sales increased to $462.1 million in fiscal year '25, up 9.9%. We also delivered strong operating performance as pro forma adjusted EBITDA increased to [indiscernible] million in fiscal year '25, up 23.5%.

As Tom mentioned, implementation of the revenue operating system at CompoSecure [indiscernible] real inflection in financial performance. With that, let me take a step back and talk about where CompoSecure sits in the market today for those who are new to [indiscernible]

[indiscernible] going to Slide 17. CompoSecure is the go premium entertainment cards with over 200 active made programs. We rent 9 of the top 10 U.S. additions, along with our growing rest of disruptive context. Our leadership position is reinforced by 1,000 design and utility patents and 25 years of technical expertise, we have built a unique, competitive mode that combines proprietary design, engineering and scaled manufacturing capabilities will enable us to deliver high-quality metal cards at scale. In 2025, we shipped more than 30 million cards to our customers.

Moving to Slide 18. Our business is much, much more than making the metal card. We deliver a tire value proposition to our customers. As a pioneer of metal cards, we uniquely understand evolving customer needs. -- and use that understanding to inform our customer-centric innovation, coupled with our advanced manufacturing capabilities and integrated authentication capabilities with -- we are a trusted partner for issuers as they launch their signature core programs.

Turning to Slide 19, where we speak about the industry. Our offerings are in mission-critical but low-cost component of the overall value proposition for payment card programs. Launching a metal card enhances brand loyalty and delivers accelerated returns through higher acquisition, customer acquisition, spending and retention, resulting in significant ROI for our customers.

Our products elevate our customers' position and deliver measurable financial impact by enriching their programs while driving differentiation and positioning their cards at top of wallet. Importantly, metal cars remain significantly underpenetrated at less than 1% of all cards ship globally. When combined with our expectation of low double-digit growth for the premium car segment globally, this creates a long runway for growth and continued share gains versus plastic cards.

On Slide 20, this brings me to the strength of our model and industry. We're seeing continued adoption of payment cards globally, increasing the total addressable base of cards in circulation. Additionally, the new users in international markets and the Fintech segment, are launching their first metal card programs and existing customers are expanding their programs through tiering to further drive improved customer acquisition spend and retention, which also needs to higher ASPs.

According to industry data, credit and debit card in circulation, including plastic cards, have grown at approximately 8% over the past 5 years. And CompoSecure is well positioned to further capture field within that expanding. All of this supports a durable recurring revenue model as new cards are introduced, reissued, refreshed and upgraded over term. In addition to our core offering, CompoSecure is extending its technology leadership through its Oculus platform a multifactor authentication and digital asset storage solution that embeds secure login technology directly into metal cards.

Instead of relying on passwords, which can be lost or compromised, [indiscernible] seamlessly integrates 3 secure elements. One, phone biometrics; two, a pin; and thirdly, a metal card. This makes it ideal for high-security applications like logging into financial accounts or safeguarding sensitive digital information.

While the platform was originally designed to protect digital assets its broader applications now include passwordless login, identity verification and transaction approvals, especially in environments where both security and simplicity are critical.

This represents a natural adjacency for CompoSecure. We are leveraging our expertise in secure physical products and trusted issuer relationships to expand into authentication use cases. In 2025, [indiscernible] continued to scale and is now a growing contributor to revenues and cash flows, reinforcing our belief that this platform can be a long-term value creator. So when you step back, we have a core metal card platform with structural growth tailwinds, and we are extending that platform into adjacent authentication opportunities through Arculus.

Going to Slide 22. While we often talk about new program wins, a significant portion of our growth is supported by the installed base of metal cards already in circulation. Approximately 75% of our revenue is recurring, driven by replacement and reissuer cycles.

Over the past 4 years, we have shipped approximately 123 million metal cards. That growing installed base creates a predictable stream of replacement volume over time. As metal cards in circulation continue to scale, this recurring component of our revenue base will grow alongside it. This is an important flywheel and structural [indiscernible] of our model, which provides strong visibility into our future growth.

On Slide 23. In addition to that recurring foundation, organic growth is also driven by continued innovation and customer wins. There is incredible innovation and engineering complexity behind our products. Our cards integrate secure elements near field communication capabilities and layered material construction, all of which require advanced manufacturing.

That technical differentiation is a key reason why we continue to secure high-profile customer wins. This includes recent wins with Wells Fargo Autograph, Bilt's re-launch of a tiered portfoliosn and Citi's American Airlines Centennial card among others, these recent wins underscore the strength of our customer relationships, the breadth of demand for differentiated premium car solution. and the value we deliver to use tissues.

With that overview, let me hand the call over to our CFO, Mary Holt, to review our financial results.

Good morning, everyone. Let's turn to our financial performance. In the fourth quarter, CompoSecure delivered non-GAAP net sales of $117.7 million up approximately 17% compared to prior year, reflecting strong domestic demand and continued momentum across our core customer base.

Non-GAAP gross margins in the fourth quarter reached 55.7%, up approximately 360 basis points from last year, as we continue to benefit from the implementation of the Resolute operating system which has led to increased discipline across manufacturing, sourcing and end-to-end execution.

Pro forma adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased approximately 41% to $43 million, while pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin increased approximately 640 basis points to 36.5%. This performance highlights the operating leverage in our business and the continued benefits from driving operational efficiencies.

For full year 2025, CompoSecure once again delivered across the board. Non-GAAP net sales were up approximately 10% year-over-year to approximately $462 million. Non-GAAP gross margin improved approximately [ 20% ] and up 420 basis points to 56.3%, and pro forma adjusted EBITDA increased approximately 24% to $171 million, with pro forma adjusted EBITDA margins expanding more than 400 basis points to 36.9%.

Let me hand it back to Graham to close out the CompoSecure section.

Thank you, Mary. Looking ahead, I am very encouraged by where CompoSecure stands. Entering 2026, we see continued strength in our core metal card business, supported by a healthy pipeline. We also expect Arculus to remain an important growth range as adoption broadens across authentication and payment adjacent use cases.

Equally important, we see significant opportunities to continue improving execution and margins as the Resolute operating system becomes further embedded across the organization. Some of those gains will continue to flow through to profitability, and some will be strategically invested to support sustained growth.

In closing, CompoSecure has a strong position, a compelling value proposition and a proven ability to translate growth into cash flow and earnings. I am excited to lead this business into its next phase and deliver long-term value for investors.

I'll now pass the call back to Tom.

Thanks, Graham. Before we get to the Husky results, I'm excited to introduce Rob Domodossola as the new President and CEO of Husky. Rob brings a long and tremendously successful Husky career to the position and his background in technology, engineering, sales and marketing adds a lot to our increased growth focus.

Rob has 30 years of dedicated service to Husky, having joined in 1996 and most recently serving as the President of Systems and Tooling. Throughout his career, Rob has demonstrated exceptional leadership across multiple divisions, including President of Rigid Packaging, President of Medical and Specialty Packaging Systems and Vice President of Engineering and Business Development.

He is admired internally and externally for his relentless commitment to the customer, and we could not be more excited about working with him in this new role. Rob, over to you.

Tom, thanks for the kind words. I'm really excited and honored to serve as only the fourth CEO in Husky's 70-year history. What's company on Husky for the past 3 years is our passion for innovation with an 18- to 24-month cadence of new product launches that kept us in the lead.

Our deep customer intimacy, investments in our go-to-market approach that has strengthened our customer loyalty, while helping us diversify our customer base and our desire and capability to serve our customers anywhere in the world, 24/7, and now with the capital structure that Resolute brings and the Resolute operating system, which is essentially a playbook for commercial excellence, we can leverage these core competencies and develop new capabilities for growth. I'm really excited about Husky's prospects.

For those who are new to Husky, Slide from 6 captures who we are and white Husky is such an attractive addition to the GPGI platform. We certainly hold great positions in a good industry and are the global leader in highly engineered injection molding systems and related aftermarket services. Husky has a global recognized brand with a long-standing reputation for manufacturing best-in-class systems over 70 years.

We primarily serve attractive food, beverage and medical packaging end markets and have a large installed base with approximately 65% of our sales coming from reoccurring high-margin aftermarket parts and services.

Now if we turn to Slide 27. Husky has a leading competitive position derived from its mission-critical products and a long-standing track record that creates a durable competitive advantage. We have an installed base of approximately 13,500 total systems that drive high recurring revenues from aftermarket parts, tooling and services.

Our installed base is well distributed globally, and we benefit from growth in both developed as well as emerging markets. Husky is the global leader in PT markets across both new systems as well as aftermarket [Audio Gap]

[Operator Instructions]

Okay. Sorry about that. I'll continue here. Husky maintains its market leadership position because we have the premium product offering in our markets. We deliver our customers the lowest cost of ownership enabled by the fastest cycle times, the highest quality, the lowest energy consumption and the highest output in the industry.

Our customer base is large and diverse with no significant customer concentrations. And we have an excellent tension rate with customers who come back to us to purchase new systems year after year.

Now to help contextualize our business, Slide 28 shows how we deliver end-to-end solutions to customers. Given our legacy of innovation and close connectivity with customers, we clearly understand emerging customer needs and use this knowledge to develop customer-centric innovations with a proven product market fit.

We are a trusted partner to our customers and advise them on unpackaged design material selection, and we even designed their factories to noise throughput. Our advanced manufacturing capabilities across a global footprint gives us the ability to meet demand across markets and meet stringent customer tolerance at scale, while our 24/7 remote learning solutions help customers significantly increase their overall equipment performance to drive improved business outcomes.

Taken together, our offering support customers along every step of their product ownership journey.

Turning to Slide 29. We operate in a large and growing industry, characterized by a cyclical customer demand. The industry has supported strong growth for years, and we believe the fundamentals are firmly in place to continue that for a long time to come, especially when it comes to growing awareness of PET superior material properties.

It has a superior carbon footprint. It has regulatory push for plastic circularity and there's growing adoption for recycled plastics and packaging. Growth in PET beverage demand is the underlying secular trend driving market for Husky's equipment. It's hard to imagine the future without a lot more PET bottles as work continues to urbanize and demand for safe, affordable, convenient packaged beverage continues to grow.

Importantly, PET has demonstrated a consistent share gain over other substances. We tend -- we expect to continue. PET's peer to glass to aluminum and to paper with lower overall production costs, stronger performance characteristics and it's 100% recyclable over and over again from bottle to bottle.

Husky's certain systems are capable of processing up to 100% recycled PET, positioning the business to benefit from global regulatory initiatives that increasingly favor higher recycle content. Overall, Husky is well positioned to capitalize on favorable long-term demand drivers across its key end markets.

Moving to Slide 30. We A key differentiator for our business is our remote monitoring capability called [indiscernible] Elite. It's an internally developed technology that enables us to remotely monitor the health of our customers' equipment in real time, optimize system performance and proactively inform our customers of operational challenges or were in terror before any downtime happens.

Husky machines sit at the core of our customers' operations and typically runs close to 24/7 and with our highest output machines producing approximately 1 billion preforms per year, meaning any downtime or performance segregation can materially impact our customers' unit economics.

Advantage+Elite has -- Advantage+Elite increased uptime and overall performance of our customer systems and deliver significant value. This has resulted in increased adoption since we first launched it back in 2019. And we see tremendous white space as we look to connect the rest of our existing installed base. We expect these growth initiatives to accelerate service contract revenues, while also supporting incremental spare part sales through proactive identification of maintenance needs, which increases customers' uptime.

Going to Slide 31. Our global installed base and rising content per system drive high-margin reoccurring aftermarket revenue streams that underpins our organic growth. For each new system sale, we expect to generate about 2 to 3x the initial sale value in aftermarket products and services over the life cycle of the system.

While our equipment can run for over 20 years, and it does, and we generally view the economic life of a system being approximately 15 years. And with more than 50% of our installed base over 15 years old, we're excited by the favorable demand dynamics this creates for upcoming replacement cycles.

Our technology focus results in constant improvements, so machine today is significantly more productive than one say from 10 years ago. Importantly, this aftermarket revenue stream has demonstrated resilience across economic cycles and carries higher margins than new system sales. As the installed base continues to expand, increase a self-reinforcing flywheel that supports durable long-term aftermarket growth.

Now Slide 32 outlines our key organic growth drivers and how we plan to capture the significant white space ahead. We delineate growth opportunities by new markets and through capturing share within our existing installed base.

The 4 primary pillars of our growth include: one, expanding share in our core PET markets through stronger sales execution continued technology differentiation and asset renewal to support recycled PET regulatory requirements; two, by leveraging our brand and engineering capabilities to grow our install base beyond PET with new products, particularly across packaging systems, beverage closure systems and medical end markets; three, by capturing the full aftermarket opportunity with our own installed base and finally, by becoming the digital leader in our industry through Advantage+Elite.

We are already leveraging sales in Resolute tools from the Resolute operating system to execute against each 1 of these initiatives, deliver growth and drive collaboration across go-to-market, finance and operational functions. We remain excited about the opportunities ahead of us.

And with that, I'll turn it over to John Linker, Husky's CFO, to wrap up the Husky section.

Thanks, Rob. Closing out with Slide 33, we cover Husky's financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, noting that the business combination closed after the quarter end in January 2026. Net sales increased to $521 million in the fourth quarter, up over 6% from prior year, primarily from volume and also a small tailwind from FX.

Fourth quarter volume growth came primarily from China, India, Europe and Latin America, while North America and the Middle East were flat and Africa declined. Net sales increased to approximately $1.57 billion for full year 2025, up 5% from 2024, again, due to volume with a small tailwind from FX.

Full year 2025 volume growth was driven by strength in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and India, while China declined due to a tough year-over-year comp. However, the momentum in sales growth was offset by margin compression in both the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Margins were adversely impacted by 3 primary drivers unique to 2025 that we have confidence will not recur going forward.

First, from a product mix standpoint, we delivered higher sales growth in new system sales versus aftermarket. This transient mix brought down blended margins in 2025, but it also means that we're seeing an acceleration in new systems demand, which grows the installed base and drives margin accretive aftermarket sales in future periods.

Second, we made strategic investments in sales force coverage, service contract labor and new product prototyping to support long-term value growth in future periods.

Lastly and most acutely in the fourth quarter, we faced variable cost inefficiencies in labor and overhead as we ramp the organization to deliver the record level of sales throughput. With respect to ongoing investments, particularly now as a GPGI company, we are focused on catalyzing sales growth, improving profitability through operational efficiencies and accelerating new product introductions.

All of these initiatives are being enabled by the significantly enhanced capital structure under GPGI and operating focus and expertise from Resolute paired with the long-standing culture of innovation at Husky that is no longer capital constrained. We are firmly in the early stages of implementing the Resolute operating systems, and we are encouraged by initial progress, and we're confident in our ability to return to margin expansion in 2026.

I'll now turn it back to Tom to discuss GPGI's guidance.

Thanks, John. Let's go to Slide 35, where we address our pro forma forward guidance for fiscal year '26. We are encouraged by the trends we see at both businesses and are introducing a guidance range for fiscal year '26 that represents this, while also accounting for the dynamic macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop.

We currently expect non-GAAP net sales of approximately $2.18 billion to $2.23 billion, pro forma adjusted EBITDA of approximately $620 million to $650 million and pro forma adjusted free cash flow of approximately $325 million to $375 million. The midpoint figures represent 8.5% non-GAAP net sales growth approximately 17% adjusted EBITDA growth and approximately 29% adjusted EBITDA margins.

We expect continued momentum at both businesses in fiscal year '26. At CompoSecure, increasing adoption of metal payment cards and ongoing share gains are driving new program launches and expanding cards in circulation, creating meaningful opportunities with both new and existing customers.

At Husky, pipeline activity is building with continued strength expected in higher growth emerging markets alongside growth in North America supported by aftermarket performance and packaging systems demand. across both businesses, new product introduction, targeted investments and improved go-to-market execution are expected to catalyze growth.

On the margin side, we expect to drive margin expansion through organic sales growth cost savings through operational efficiencies and realizing fixed cost leverage. We are deploying the Resolute operating system and are investing in R&D, commercial excellence and operational improvements at both Husky and CompoSecure.

In terms of cadence through the year, we anticipate GPGI revenue growth and margin expansion to accelerate in the second half versus the first half, with growth in the first half anticipated to be mid-single digits year-over-year expanding to double-digit year-over-year growth in the second half.

Margins are expected to be relatively flat in the first half of the year, with margin declines at Husky in the first quarter. as key investments and in-flight operational improvement initiatives at Husky take time to be fully realized. These costs will offset anticipated margin expansion that CompoSecure early in fiscal year '26, but will contribute to margin expansion that is expected in the second half and the full year.

Concluding my comments on Slide 36, we provide a summary of our pro forma financial metrics for fiscal year '26 and the supplemental bridge for pro forma adjusted free cash flow. We are enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead for CompoSecure and Husky and view 2026 as a foundational year of cultural change ROS implementation and strategic seed planting that gives us confidence in delivering best-in-class top line growth, margin expansion and free cash flow generation.

With that, I'll hand the call back to Dave for some closing remarks.

Well, as I said at the beginning, the formation of GPGI establishes the foundation for a best-in-class diversified compounder that we believe can be a home for market-leading businesses and best-in-class operators. We have a proven value creation plan that implements our operating system to catalyze organic growth, improve margins.

It builds a high-performance culture and brings rigorous discipline around capital allocation to pursue accretive inorganic growth. We are operating from a position of strength. The opportunity ahead is substantial, and we're focused on building upon our momentum to deliver long-term value for our investors.

So with that, I'd like to open up the call for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question coming from the line of Moshe Orenbuch with TD Cowen.

Great. I was hoping you could talk a little bit on the Campo secure side. about the factors that could drive the difference in terms of your range of expectations for revenue, what sorts of things it take to get to the higher end of that? And I've got a follow-up, if that's okay.

So as we look at the CompoSecure business, the key drivers that we look at in terms of growth are what we do in terms of our core business, our core card payment business, how we drive growth internationally and how we ramp up our Arculus business overall. Those 3 factors really drive what will influence the range in terms of our outcomes.

Okay. And maybe as part of the guidance, you talked about getting leverage down to about 3x on an adjusted basis. Could you talk about kind of how that -- how you think about that level, like what that means? Is that insufficiently improved to think about other actions? Or how do you think about that level for the -- by the end 2026?

Yes. Moshe, this is Tom. Thanks for the question. We would expect total leverage to be below 3x. We talked about it pretty consistently. I think Dave and I don't like worrying about debt or cash. And so -- you can expect us to continue moving that lower. We're certainly not afraid of leverage in the context of where it is now.

We think the business is incredibly durable, both on the demand side and in the cash generation side. But you're going to see us bring that down to below 3x. I think that would be pretty comfortable and normal place for us to operate on a go-forward basis.

Our next question coming from the line of Reggie Smith with JPMorgan.

You guys typically, I guess, disclosed card shipments in the U.K. So I guess we can look for. But I was curious, I really would love to dig into the margin expansion -- gross margin expansion you've seen this year of Compo. And specifically, if you can kind of break that down or break that out between maybe increases in price per car versus reductions and COGS itself per card.

And then maybe if you could highlight 2 or 3 things operationally that you did that made those gross margins so strong this year? And then I have one follow-up.

Right. Thanks for the question. So if you think about the implementation of the ROS operating system, that is really lended to lean principles being deployed throughout the organization. And as we've talked about before, having a focus on yields.

So when I think about our margin expansion, there is a favorable price mix impact in the 2025 results -- but there's also a pretty healthy impact from yields. So I think if you think of those 2 things together, those are really the things that drove our gross margin expansion, again with ROS helping drive the improved yields?

Yes. Is there a way to frame that? Maybe 1/3, 2/3, like how should we think about those 2 different components.

I don't think we're going to get into that level of detail here, but just rest assured that we are going to continue to focus on our margin expansion for '26 and have a number of terrific programs lined up to ensure that we continue to drive the operational efficiencies.

And then my last question, and it really just came to me as you guys were talking, listening to your ROS system. I was curious are there any plans to possibly just license it out to other companies rather than acquire them? And then secondarily, I wanted to give you guys a chance to kind of address, I guess, the questions and concerns that may relate to potential conflict of interest between RHLD and GPGI shareholders and how you guys are managing those confidence.

Well, the first question is no. The second one, I don't see a conflict. So I mean, the 2 are inextricable. So the success of RHLD comes from the success of GPGI. So I don't see a conflict, Tom. I don't know...

No, I think maybe I can be more specific. So I guess the concern is that RHLD is compensated on EBITDA. And I guess, presumably, shareholders are driven by EPS. And so there's, I guess, a leverage in interest costs and is -- so directionally, yes...

I guess I mean you rephrase the question, but the answer is still the same is there's no conflict there. This is -- they're tied together. The success of one depends on the success of the other. And we're very focused on the success of GPGI because that's, again, as we've said many times, the foundation of everything we see as a success at RHLD, GPGI has to be the foundation for that. We've got a lot of money invested in GPGI. We want to see it grow and be successful. That's where we apply ROS. That's where we work on growing sales, EBITDA and cash flow because that's the foundation for RHL. So I'm hard for us to see any kind of conflict.

I appreciate that. I only ask because if we get the question from investors, and I wanted you to be able to address it.

Yes, it's -- we've got -- I have to say we have gotten the question before, -- it didn't make sense then, it doesn't make sense now. So I think that's [indiscernible] you have to go back to everyone is to say, okay, we'll point out what the conflict is. And sometimes they say, "Well, get paid in RHL because of the EBITDA, it's okay." But if EBITDA is going down in GPGI, that means it will be going down for RHL, so how is that a conflict or a potential problem? It's not. The 2 are tied and we get paid based upon the success of GPGI.

So I would tell -- [indiscernible] an interesting question, but no, we're not relevant a year ago when it was asked and it's not relevant now.

Next question in queue coming from the line of Jacob Stephan with Lake Street Capital Markets.

Congrats on getting the deal closed in Q1 here. Maybe just to start out, obviously, margins -- gross margins have improved pretty significantly at Compo. I'm wondering what kind of opportunity you're seeing at Husky? Is it similar to the operating structure in COGS that you see at Campo and maybe how it differs from a margin improvement perspective over the next year or so.

I would say the answer is yes, and I will let Rob explain how.

The single biggest -- this is John speaking. The single biggest unlock that we have at Husky is really accelerating the organic volume growth. This is a business that has performed very well and historically in margins, but as not outgrown the market in terms of volume and with our very high variable contribution margins, given our cost structure, if we can accelerate volume growth as sort of embedded in the guidance that Tom described, that alone drops through very meaningfully to the bottom line.

Aside from that, the Resolute operating system brings great discipline around the cost side of business, both on direct and indirect costs, and we've got a good pipeline of cost savings programs that are in place to drive cost out of the business, and that's well underway and good visibility there.

And then I'd say the other side of things is more on the pricing and commercial excellence side. That is an area where we've already been working with the Resolute team to make sure that we're optimizing price and the right products and regions that will drive the balance between volume and pricing to drop through to margins. So I mean, those are the big buckets that I would see at Husky, but Rob,any comment.

Yes. Maybe just add some color to that too, John. One of the biggest initiatives this year for growth is in our aftermarket tooling business. We ran a pilot campaign last year to recapture share in emerging markets, and it was exceptional. So we're doubling down on that at the same time, using the Resolute operating system, we think there's tremendous opportunity to improve our cost competitiveness to make us even more competitive while maintaining and improving margins. But I think those are the biggest drivers.

I would just say generally, and we put the little bit of case study in for Compo, which you've been able to see. I think every business we look at has the same fundamentals in terms of the opportunity where we focus on sales, focus on controlling cost and focusing on reinvesting and marrying all those 3 together with an appropriate capital structure allows us to really get after that, and you're going to see the same thing at Husky.

So I think just as a general view, -- that's as simple as it is, which we're focused on the top line, we're focused on getting after the cost of the fall through, as John mentioned, on variable margins, gives us the flexibility to keep investing and Husky particularly has tremendous opportunities on the R&D side, given the tech for a company that it is and the capabilities it brings to its customers. So we're quite excited about it.

Okay. Got it. Very helpful. Obviously, with the cash flow profile changing pretty significantly. I'm wondering from a capital allocation perspective, does it make sense to be repurchasing shares at this point? Or how do you kind of think through just what your priorities are?

Yes. And our first priorities, we've said several times hasn't changed, and that's to pay down debt. That's going to be our focus.

Thank you. And' there are no further questions in the queue at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Liz, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the CompoSecure Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to Steven Feder, CompoSecure's General Counsel. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to CompoSecure's conference call, where we will review CompoSecure's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results and discuss the planned business combination with Husky Technologies. With me on the call is Dave Cote, Executive Chairman of CompoSecure; Tom Knott, Chief Investment Officer of CompoSecure; Jon Wilk, Chief Executive Officer; Tim Fitzsimmons, our retiring CFO; and Mary Holt, incoming Chief Financial Officer. We will begin with prepared remarks and then open the call for Q&A.

During the call, we will make statements related to our business that may be considered forward-looking, including statements about our growth strategy, customer demand, our ability to maintain existing and acquire new customers, implementation of the CompoSecure operating systems and our guidance for '25 and '26 as well as other statements regarding plans and prospects. For a discussion of material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to the information in our annual report on Form 10-K and other reports filed with the SEC, which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website and on the SEC's website at sec.gov.

Please note that effective as of February 28, 2025, the date of the spin-off of Resolute Holdings Management, Inc. and as a result of the management agreement between Resolute Holdings Management, Inc. and the company's wholly owned subsidiary, CompoSecure Holdings, the results of operations of CompoSecure Holdings and the operating companies which are its subsidiaries are not consolidated in the financial statements included in this report and instead are accounted for under the equity method of accounting.

In the earnings release we issued earlier today and the discussion on today's call, we also present non-GAAP financial measures to help investors better understand our operating performance. The company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information to management and investors regarding certain financial and business trends impacting the company's financial condition and results of operations. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as an alternative to performance measures derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP and may be different from similarly titled non-GAAP measures used by other companies. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is available in our press release and earnings presentation available on the IR section of our website.

Thank you. And with that said, let me turn the call over to Executive Chairman, Dave Cote.

Well, what a wicked great day we have to celebrate today. We have good news busting out all over. So before I get into CompoSecure's third quarter, I want to begin with a few remarks about my excitement regarding the Husky transaction.

When my family invested in CompoSecure over a year ago, a big part of the value-creation plan was to implement our operating system to catalyze organic growth, improve margins and build a rigorous discipline around capital allocation to pursue accretive inorganic growth.

While still early, we're delivering strong organic growth and improved profitability at CompoSecure. The third quarter results are terrific. Over the past year, we have been actively looking for another great business that could benefit from our operating system and shares the same foundational characteristics we look for at Honeywell, Vertiv and CompoSecure. I am delighted to report that we have found all that and more in Husky.

We view the combination of CompoSecure and Husky as the foundation for a best-in-class diversified compounder. CompoSecure is the global leader in manufacturing premium metal payment cards and authentication solutions. Husky is the global leader in highly engineered injection molding equipment and aftermarket services. Collectively, they form a platform positioned to become the home for market-leading businesses that operate in attractive industries, generate recurring revenues, deliver high growth and profitability, achieve attractive returns on incremental invested capital and offer significant opportunities for long-term value creation.

Husky checks every box of our investment criteria. It has a great position in a good industry. It differentiates with technology, and it presents a substantial upside potential in both organic and inorganic growth, along with clear opportunities for margin expansion.

Coupled with an ability to generate strong free cash flow and a healthy pro forma balance sheet that will delever quickly, we find this to be an incredibly compelling opportunity for CompoSecure investors as we expand the operating platform. Tom and I will provide further details on the transaction and the business after we cover CompoSecure's third quarter results.

Turning to CompoSecure, a year after our investment, it is gratifying to see the progress we've made. We have accelerated organic growth, strengthened our operating discipline and begun to realize the benefits of cultivating a high-performance culture.

Our strategic initiatives underpinned by the CompoSecure Operating System, or COS, are yielding results, and the business is consistently performing at a much higher level. The nice thing about all this is that it is just the beginning with tremendous opportunity ahead to further drive investor value creation.

Significant opportunities remain for CompoSecure to unlock faster organic growth while continuing to drive meaningful operational efficiencies across the business. The combination with Husky diversifies CompoSecure's business and adds multiple levers of future value creation. Our focus will remain on disciplined execution, innovation and maintaining the momentum that's driving our success. And we will continue making strategic investments necessary to fully capitalize on the opportunities to deliver long-term value for all our investors.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Jon.

Thanks, Dave. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter conference call. Before we go through the Q3 results, I want to take a moment to publicly recognize Tim Fitzsimmons and his work as our CFO over the past 13 years. As announced in June, Tim is retiring, and I want to extend my deepest thanks for all his contributions and wish him well in his retirement. He has set a strong financial foundation for the company that we will benefit from for years to come.

After an extensive search, I am thrilled to welcome Mary Holt, our incoming CFO, who joins us on the call today. Mary brings a wealth of experience and knowledge from world-class organizations such as Honeywell and Pfizer, and we are confident her background, financial acumen, proven leadership and experience with lean management operating systems will be powerful additions to our business and will play a key role in helping us advance our strategic initiatives.

Now moving to Slide 3. As we mentioned last quarter, our results are being reported using equity method accounting following the completed spin-off of Resolute Holdings Management earlier this year. On this call, we will refer to non-GAAP measures for net sales, gross profit and related operating measures. With that, let's review the quarter.

Net sales increased 13% year-over-year to $120.9 million, driven by disciplined execution, operational focus and continued support from Dave and the Board for our strategic initiatives.

Pro forma adjusted EBITDA increased 30% to $47.7 million, with an EBITDA margin of 39.5%. Implementation of the CompoSecure Operating System is clearly having a strong impact as we achieved gross margins of 59% for the quarter compared to 51.7% for the same quarter prior year. We also saw numerous customer program launches during the quarter, which I'll comment on momentarily.

And Arculus delivered another strong net positive quarter, supported by expanding commercial activity. We continue to see traction with banks, fintechs and exchanges who are launching innovative card programs and seeking enhanced security features.

With sales momentum building and operating efficiency improving, we are raising our 2025 outlook and introducing strong guidance for 2026. For fiscal year 2025, we are raising our full year guidance and now expect non-GAAP net sales of approximately $463 million and pro forma adjusted EBITDA of approximately $165 million to $170 million. We are also announcing financial guidance for 2026, where we expect non-GAAP net sales of approximately $510 million and non-GAAP pro forma adjusted EBITDA of approximately $190 million.

Turning to Slide 4. We shared a version of this slide last quarter, but it's worth a quick refresher for those new to the company since our reporting structure is rather nuanced. When evaluating CompoSecure's performance, we suggest focusing on core operating results after deducting the management fee paid to RHLD. In turn, RHLD's results primarily reflect the same management fee income, net of its own operating expenses.

Demand for our metal card products remains strong and is supported by ongoing trends we see in the market as outlined on Page 7. We also continue to make operational progress highlighted on the right side of the slide, and we are seeing sustained improvements in the business from the CompoSecure Operating System, including tangible benefits materializing on the top and bottom line as well as strong gross margin improvements.

Turning to Slide 6. We continue to see strong activity from both existing customers and new entrants, with several new and expanded programs launching in the quarter, such as Citi Strata Elite, Chime, a Bank of America, America Airlines co-brand, Alaska Airlines co-brand, Bank of Montreal and Gemini XRP. These programs reinforce the strength of our partnerships and the value we bring to issuers seeking to enhance their brand loyalty and deliver improved returns through higher customer acquisition, spending and retention.

With that, I'll pass it to Tim for a few remarks.

Thank you, Jon. I want to say what an honor it's been to work alongside such a talented team and to help CompoSecure through its evolution into a strong public company it is today. I'm deeply grateful to our employees, our leadership team, our Board of Directors and our investors for their trust and collaboration over the years. The company is well positioned, and I have no doubt CompoSecure is poised for continued growth and success under Dave and Jon's leadership.

I also would like to wish Mary Holt the best in her new role. She brings tremendous experience, deep financial expertise and a proven record of leadership. I'm confident she'll make an impact and continue to strengthen the finance organization as the company advances into its next phase of growth.

Now for some further financial details on the quarter. As Jon mentioned, following the February 28 spin-off of Resolute Holdings and the execution of the management agreement, Resolute Holdings now consolidates the financial results of CompoSecure operating under GAAP. The non-GAAP financials we are providing remain comparable to historical results with the only change being the deduction of the management fee paid to Resolute Holdings. For Resolute Holdings, the non-GAAP financials reflect the management fee revenue less salaries and operating expenses.

Now I'll walk through our Q3 2025 financial performance. Unless stated otherwise, all comparisons and variance commentary are on a year-over-year basis. In Q3, non-GAAP net sales increased 13% to $120.9 million compared to $107.1 million. Non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 59% of net sales compared to 51.7%. Non-GAAP pro forma adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased 30% to $47.7 million, up from $36.6 million. At September 30, on a non-GAAP basis, CompoSecure had $224.6 million of cash and cash equivalents, $40.7 million of investment in U.S. Treasury bills and $190 million of total debt. This compares to September 30, 2024, when the company had $52.7 million of cash and cash equivalents and $330 million of total debt.

The strong increase in cash for the quarter is primarily driven by proceeds from warrant exercises as well as free cash flow generation from operating activities. On Slide 13, you can see that domestic net sales grew 31% to $105.1 million, an increase of $25.1 million. International net sales declined 42% to $15.8 million, down $11.3 million due to timing of certain customer orders. As noted before, our international business can grow -- can show greater variability quarter-to-quarter due to a smaller scale.

Turning to Slide 14. Non-GAAP pro forma adjusted EBITDA was $47.7 million, up 30% year-over-year and non-GAAP pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin was 39.5%, up 529 basis points year-over-year.

Now let me turn it back to Jon.

Thanks, Tim. As mentioned earlier in the call, we raised our full year guidance. We now expect non-GAAP net sales to be approximately $463 million and pro forma adjusted EBITDA to be approximately $165 million to $170 million, up from our previous guidance of $455 million and $158 million, respectively.

Based on the disciplined execution of our strategic initiatives and the momentum we are seeing in the market, we have issued financial guidance for fiscal year 2026. As mentioned, we expect non-GAAP net sales of approximately $510 million and non-GAAP pro forma adjusted EBITDA of approximately $190 million. As a reminder, our raised guidance for 2025 and our guidance for 2026 includes the payment of Resolute Holdings management fee and does not include any impact from Husky.

I'd like to close with a few thoughts. The progress we have made over the past year is increasingly positive in our financial performance, in the way we operate and in the culture that is taking shape across the organization. The CompoSecure Operating System continues to deliver meaningful impact, helping us improve execution, enhance efficiency and drive record results.

We are operating from a position of strength, supported by expanding customer relationships, continued innovation and strong market demand. The opportunity ahead is substantial, and we are focused on building upon this momentum to deliver sustained long-term value for our investors.

With that, I'd like to turn it back to Dave to discuss the transaction with Husky Technologies.

Switching to Slide 3 of the business combination presentation. The combination with Husky creates a best-in-class diversified compounder. The combined platform brings together 2 global market leaders, each operating in fundamentally good industries with best-in-class financial profiles, approximately 70% recurring revenue and significant long-term growth potential. Importantly, this transaction is highly accretive to CompoSecure's investors, supports long-term value creation and preserves balance sheet flexibility for future M&A.

Starting with the market, Husky operates in a fundamentally good industry that has been historically underappreciated. The industry has supported solid growth and attractive margins for years, and we believe the fundamentals are firmly in place for that to continue for a long time to come, especially with the growing awareness of PET's superior carbon footprint, the regulatory push for plastic circularity and the growing adoption of recycled plastics in packaging.

Growth in PET beverage demand, primarily bottled water, is the underlying secular trend driving the market for Husky's equipment, and it's hard to imagine a future without a lot more packaged beverage bottles as the world continues to urbanize. Overall, Husky is well positioned to capitalize on favorable long-term demand drivers across its key end markets.

Turning to the company. Husky is a globally recognized brand with a long-standing reputation for manufacturing best-in-class systems. Platinum and the management team have established a great foundation, and their efforts have yielded solid organic growth in the last 5 years with identifying opportunities to accelerate growth in 2026 and beyond.

In many ways, Husky today is where both Honeywell and Vertiv were at the onset of my involvement. Husky is well positioned to benefit from the same operating system and process discipline that drove consistent outperformance at Honeywell, Vertiv and now CompoSecure.

All of us see the logic and opportunity with Husky. Platinum is rolling about $1 billion of their equity. My family has $1 billion of equity, and the management team is also heavily invested in the deal. I would also add that we have raised and oversubscribed $2 billion private placement from some of the leading institutional investors in the world on the same deal terms we covered today. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty psyched about this opportunity, and I hope you are, too.

With that, let me turn the call over to Tom Knott, our Chief Investment Officer, who will take you through the transaction and business in more detail.

Thank you, Dave. Let me begin by reiterating how excited we are about the opportunity for CompoSecure to combine with Husky. The transaction establishes us as a highly differentiated and diversified compounder and the opportunities ahead are many.

Stepping back, we began this journey in September 2024 with the acquisition of a majority interest in CompoSecure. Since that time, the company's performance has accelerated materially, and we are beginning to see early gains from the systematic deployment of our operating system throughout the company. We have a proven approach to business operations, and we are confident that Husky exhibits all the same foundational qualities that will enable durable long-term value creation for our investors as we begin working with Brad and his team.

Turning to Slide 4. We are acquiring Husky for approximately $5 billion or 11.2x 2026 net adjusted EBITDA, applying an enterprise value of $7.4 billion or 11.6x 2026 net adjusted EBITDA on a combined basis. The transaction is expected to be accretive to diluted EPS in the first full year post combination and will be funded through a $2 billion private placement, approximately $1 billion in rolled equity from Platinum and approximately $2 billion of debt, resulting in 3.5x net LTM leverage. We expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

Turning to Slide 5. Husky checks every box of our investment criteria just as CompoSecure did. It is the #1 player in both PET system sales as well as aftermarket. The company operates in a large, structurally growing industry characterized by acyclical customer demand. It has a long history of engineering-led innovation that drives strong technology differentiation.

We are also excited about growth opportunities we see for the business, supported by 65% recurring revenue from aftermarket sales and a highly fragmented competitive landscape. Lastly, we have already started working with the Husky team on implementing our operating system to drive growth, further margin expansion and continued strong free cash flow.

Turning to Slide 6. The transaction provides significant structural and financial benefits to CompoSecure. It diversifies our revenue base and end market exposure, reduces customer concentration, increases scale, will be highly accretive to earnings, improves capital allocation flexibility and offers substantial runway for further investor value creation.

Turning to Slide 7. Husky is the global leader in integrated engineered equipment and aftermarket services. Its business model operates much like a razor-razor blade model with an installed base of approximately 13,500 systems that result in approximately 65% recurring revenues from aftermarket parts, tooling and services.

Importantly, while Husky's equipment and services typically represent less than 5% of customers' annual operating costs, they are critical for the customers' operations with immense focus on productivity, uptime and reliability. This focus on high criticality, high-value products aligns closely with how we think about CompoSecure's market leadership in metal cards.

Turning to Slides 8 and 9. These pages really summarize the pro forma platform. The combined businesses deliver immediate scale and are positioned to deliver mid- to high single-digit organic growth, approximately 70% recurring revenue, approximately 12.5% EBITDA growth annually, 100 basis points of margin expansion opportunity per year and approximately 7.5% free cash flow yield in year 1. Taken together, the company has a best-in-class financial profile, durable growth drivers, all being offered at a significant discount to peers.

In summary, we are extremely excited about this transformative transaction and to partner with Husky. The transaction brings together 2 market leaders to create a best-in-class diversified compounder. While I'm excited about the momentum we've already seen at CompoSecure as we deliver above-market, top and bottom-line growth, I am even more excited about the opportunities I see ahead for the combined platform.

With that, I'll turn it back to Dave for some closing remarks.

Well, as I said at the beginning, I'm incredibly psyched about this opportunity. Husky has a great position in a good industry, and we see a clear path to deliver solid long-term growth with more than 500 basis points of identified margin upside for the combined company.

The long-form investor presentation we shared during the private placement process was also filed today, and it has a lot more detail that should go a long way to helping you see why we're so excited about this combination and about both businesses. On behalf of CompoSecure, we look forward to providing our investors with great returns for many years to come. We hope you'll join us.

So with that, I'll open up the call for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Moshe Orenbuch with TD Cowen.

Great. Congrats on all the stuff that you have accomplished and disclosed today. Wondering because I was able to kind of scroll quickly through the presentation, only saw it a few moments ago, but I don't think it includes like share count. Like how do we think about -- as we think about shares, the effective number that will be included in that for those purposes?

Yes, Moshe, this is Tom. The share count you should think about on a pro forma basis will be 291 million shares.

Got it. Okay. Good. And then maybe with respect to, as you think about the margins, a very strong margin performance on CompoSecure and the improvement that you've seen. Is there a way to kind of discuss how much of that improvement that you are hoping to see from the implementation of the operating system is kind of in place and how much of that is still coming? And maybe just if you could just kind of discuss with us where you think the CompoSecure piece of the business is in that journey.

So thanks, Moshe. When we think about where we are, there is still enormous potential ahead in the operating system work to continue to improve our efficiency. At the same time, and as we've said on prior calls, we will continue to invest in critical areas of growth, building out the sales team, building out the engineering and R&D capability of the company to help make sure we've got the things in place to deliver that sustained organic growth over time. So still tremendous opportunity ahead, some of which will flow through to margins, some of which will be reinvested to plant seeds for the future.

The next question comes from the line of Jacob Stephan with Lake Street Capital Markets.

I'd love to say congratulations for today. Just wanted to start off with a question on the acquisition. Maybe you could kind of help us think through some of the synergies you have within your core kind of metal card business and what you see with Husky's kind of injection molding equipment.

Yes. At the end of the day, we're not pointing to nor counting on any kind of synergies between the 2 businesses. You can expect there are some, but we didn't want to count on anything. Where the synergies come from in what can be considered unrelated businesses, it's the same thing that we used to point to at Honeywell, where we get asked how do aerospace, controls, chemicals and turbochargers go together. And everybody is expecting some kind of made-up technology insight, which we didn't do. And we just said, at the end of the day, the same thing that matters there is what matters here.

It's the consistent application of a management operating system that works quite well and being able to implement the operating system, it will be the Husky operating system, the CompoSecure Operating System, getting functional transformation implemented, making sure you have a very good people process in place, agreement on strategic priorities with the monthly growth days, which sounds like a simple meeting, but it's actually a lot more than that.

It's the application and implementation of those management philosophies that make all the difference in the world. Getting that culture to the point where people want to perform at a high level because it's fun and they enjoy it matters greatly. It's a tough thing to measure. But when you get it, like we did at Honeywell, like we've got at Vertiv, like it's happening at CompoSecure, which is going to happen at Husky, that's where all the magic happens.

Got it. And maybe you could kind of help us think through some of the more recurring natures of that business. I know you guys kind of talked about 70% recurring revenue mix. But in addition to the actual injection molding equipment, what about the business is recurring?

Yes. So like we said on the call a little earlier, it's very much sort of the razor-razor blade where you've got a large installed base of machines, and we're selling aftermarket parts and services to those customers to support the installed base. So you've got a big installed base and you're selling parts and services to those customers to support the machines that are already in place.

Your next question comes from the line of Hal Goetsch with B. Riley Securities.

Thanks for all the detail on this transaction. I got 2 questions and one relates to Compo on margin expansion and then on the guidance and maybe margin expansion potential of the combined company. We were thinking Compo was going to have about 50% gross margins for the long haul. And in less than a year, they're in the high 50s. And like you just said, you've guided to maybe 100 basis points of margin expansion in the combined business. And I'm just thinking that seems modest at this time. But before we -- but on the first part, can you just tell us what kind of has happened operationally to get the kind of efficiency you've got in the last 3 quarters?

So Hal, literally putting into practice exactly what Dave described, putting in place that operating system, the routines, the tenacity, the culture change that we have put in place, those are the things that are driving the improvements that we talk about. And it is, we believe, sustainable, and we believe there is still more opportunity ahead.

The comment that was made earlier is that we believe there is that kind of opportunity on an annual basis to continue to improve margins across the combined businesses. You also heard my answer to Moshe's question earlier, which was this idea that we still believe there's meaningful opportunity with Compo, some of which will accrete to margins, some that we will reinvest in planting seeds to help make sure that we've got the sustained organic growth, the sustained innovation pipeline and the breakthrough R&D to help make sure that we can continue to deliver for our customers. And it is literally that -- those lessons from Honeywell, the lessons from Vertiv, now Compo that we believe we can implement at Husky as well.

Yes. So if I get one follow-up to kind of triangulate this. So if both companies at the spot where Honeywell was at and Vertiv was at when Mr. Cote got involved, where did margins go with those businesses over a 36-month period?

Well, I don't have those off the top of my head, but they're public record and they're good. Let's put it this way. I've learned that analysts can't handle anything above a commitment to improve basis points above 500. So I used to think at Vertiv that we could get 1,000 points. They couldn't handle it. So I said, "Okay, it's 500." And we're at 1,000, they say, "Oh, well, where can you go next?" And we can't say 1,000 points more because they can't handle it. So that's why we're telling you 500.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.