ALH - NYSE

Good morning, and welcome to Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc.'s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. With us today are Michael Schoeb, Chief Executive Officer, Dean Nolden, Chief Financial Officer, and Robert Calver, Vice President of Investor Relations. After the speakers' prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, then return to the queue if needed. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the program over to the team. Robert, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Along with today's call, you can find our earnings press release and presentation on our Investor Relations website at ir.alliancelaundry.com. A replay will also be available on our website following the call. As a reminder, today's earnings release, presentation, and statements made during this call include forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. Such risks and uncertainties include factors set forth in the earnings release and in our filings with the SEC, including the Risk Factors section of our IPO prospectus and subsequent 10-K filing. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Additionally, during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures outlined in our earnings presentation. We believe these measures are important indicators of our operations as they exclude items that may not be indicative of ongoing business performance. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measure can be found in our earnings release and presentation appendix. I will now turn the call over to Michael.

Thanks, Robert, and thank you all for joining us this morning for our first full year earnings call as a public company. I'll discuss our strong full year performance, key drivers of our success, and how we're well-positioned for continued growth. Dean will then walk through our financial results in detail and introduce our 2026 guidance. We'll conclude with Q&A. I want to start where I always begin, which is with appreciation for our employees around the world, our customers, distribution partners, and our shareholders and analysts. We value your trust and engagement. 2025 was a landmark year for Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. Our results demonstrate what we have been talking about since becoming a public company, that a resilient, replacement-driven, essential industry, a market-leading position, and disciplined operational excellence delivers strong outcomes. Now before we get into our results, let me walk you through how I think about the business. First, our industry. Commercial laundry is a vibrant, growing, and essential part of modern life. Laundry is not discretionary. It performs across all economic cycles, providing a level of growth, consistency, and downside protection that is hard to find. Every time there's a macroeconomic event or noise in the world, we're reminded of how fortunate we are to be a part of this incredible industry. After all, as we said on our roadshow, every day is laundry day. Second, our leadership position. We are the number one pure play commercial laundry manufacturer in the world, and we have built striking advantages over any other competitor. Our scale, our global footprint, and demonstrated manufacturing prowess exist to deliver what our customers want most and need to run their businesses efficiently. They are incredibly sophisticated, and they understand that long life, durability, and reliability, combined with world-class aftermarket capabilities, result in a favorable total cost of ownership. Initial price is always important, but what we hear again and again is, "Please do not lower quality." That is what drives us and helps strengthen our leadership position. In my nearly 20 years with Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc., I've never been more confident about the opportunities ahead of us. Turning now to our Q4 and full year highlights on slide four, we finished strong in Q4, with revenue up 10% year-over-year, driven by strong volume growth alongside selective price realization. For the full year, we delivered total revenue of $1.7 billion, up 13% versus the prior year, and Adjusted EBITDA grew 14%, with a record full year Adjusted EBITDA margin of 25.5%. Nearly all of our growth for the quarter and full year was organic in nature. 2025 marks our second consecutive year of double-digit growth on both the top and bottom line, continuing our long track record of compounding above the market from a revenue base that is 25% larger than just two years ago. Full year growth was driven 70/30 by volume versus price, with Q4 normalizing to a more historical even split. This is consistent with the dynamics we've seen in this industry over many cycles, where our diversification in product, geography, and end markets provides multiple avenues for growth. We strengthened our balance sheet, reducing net leverage to 2.8x, a reduction of 2.2 turns, roughly equally from operational de-leveraging and our successful IPO in October. We continue to invest in the business. Capital expenditures of $54 million were invested in capacity expansion, automation, and new product development, with increased investment to further support our digital and engineering capabilities to enhance innovation and Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc.'s competitive differentiation. Before we take you through our 2025 performance in more detail, let me step back and remind you why we are confident. Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. stands alongside the very best industrial companies, not just in growth, profitability, and free cash flow generation, but across every dimension that defines a great industrial business. On slide five, we believe there are four factors that define why Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. wins and is able to create sustainable long-term value. First, we operate in a very attractive industry. Commercial laundry is essential to everyday life. It is not cyclical, offering downside protection in economic uncertainty and steady replacement-driven demand. Second, we believe Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. has a sustainable competitive advantage. Our financial scale is more than twice that of our nearest competitor. We operate a global manufacturing and engineering platform across three continents that few, if any, competitors can replicate. That scale is both a barrier to entry and a growth enabler. Third, we have a proven team that has delivered across economic cycles, and 2025 was no exception. Fourth, we have a compelling growth algorithm supported by systemic tailwinds. Next, I want to spend some time clearly laying out what defines Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc.'s culture, its leadership, and consistent success. Slide six captures this well. First, we are a pure play commercial laundry company. This means every investment dollar, every engineering hour, every strategic decision is focused on one thing: commercial laundry. Even our residential product is a commercial machine sold into the home through independent retailers and has minimal exposure to new construction housing cycles. Our commercial and home customers buy for many reasons, but it is largely because they too are searching for low total cost of ownership. They tend to be more affluent given our price point, or they are processing large volumes of laundry, such as those with large families or blue-collar workers who work in fields such as agriculture, oil and gas, or are mechanical. Let me emphasize again, we are replacement driven. Secondly, everything we do is built around delivering total cost of ownership. Our customers are clear. Don't cheapen the product, don't cut corners, don't sacrifice quality. This doesn't mean our teams are not focused on cost, but it does mean we are very methodical and test extensively to ensure we protect our TCO that customers value. Thirdly, our value proposition is supported by high-quality distributors who provide premier pre- and post-sale support and service that our end customer and operators demand. Over decades, we have intentionally built a global distribution network of over 600 partners. These are businesses whose economics are centered on capital-efficient, demand-driven ordering. They do not hold large inventories or over-purchase ahead of demand. Our delivery capabilities mean there is no incentive to do so. The results we see clearly mirror end market demand with limited order pattern distortions that can affect other industrial businesses. Importantly, commercial laundry is mission critical. Laundromats, hospitals, hotels, and communal laundry facilities need their machines to run regardless of the interest rate cycle, AI CapEx trends, construction activity, or any single macro theme. We believe this genuine non-cyclicality is underappreciated relative to other industrial businesses whose end markets are more driven by volatile or cyclical demand dynamics, and it is a distinction we think will increasingly differentiate Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. Now, I'll highlight a few initiatives that made 2025 such an excellent year. On the innovation front, we launched multiple industry-leading products. We continue to expand ProCapture, our unique and patented lint filtration system, across more of our product lines. We launched the T55 Stacked Tumbler, the industry's largest stacked dryer. We launched Scan-Pay-Wash, a first of its kind cashless payment solution requiring no app download that has seen faster adoption than we have seen for any previous digital launch, with more than a third of a million transactions. Let me repeat, a third of a million transactions processed to date. We began selling Stax-X, a stacked washer and dryer for laundromats, developed entirely at our Thailand engineering center for Asian markets, and that has seen strong initial demand. Supporting our clear value proposition, our global test lab teams carried out over 5 million hours of physical product testing in 2025. This is the equivalent of more than 570 years of continuous testing conducted in a single year across our testing bays worldwide. Reflecting on our commitment to quality and durability, our testing hours will increase significantly in 2026 as our new facilities in Thailand and the Czech Republic are fully ramped up. We also expanded our direct business in Q4, acquiring one of our New York-based distributors, deepening our direct presence in one of North America's most attractive urban markets. Just last week, we closed on an additional acquisition to further consolidate our position in that same market. We invested $54 million to expand capacity, add automation, and launch new product lines in all of our global facilities, and enhanced our advanced testing capabilities worldwide. Alongside these investments, our cost down initiatives, operational excellence programs, and supply chain optimization delivered approximately 80 basis points of gross margin expansion, supporting our continued margin expansion trajectory and focus on investing in growth. Finally, we successfully established ourselves as a public company, which allowed us to significantly delever, strengthen our balance sheet, and provide capital allocation flexibility to support growth as we move into 2026. We also strengthened our governance, reporting, and Investor Relations functions to support our long-term growth. On slide eight, let me turn to our 2026 strategic priorities. We are fortunate to operate in a very stable market that grows consistently through economic cycles, and we see healthy demand into 2026 and beyond. This demand is broad-based across our key geographic markets with strength across our vended, on-premise, and commercial and home product offerings. Dean will walk you through our detailed guidance for 2026, but as it is every year, our first priority is to deliver profitable growth. At a high level, we expect revenue growth of between 5% and 7%, split roughly evenly between volume and price, and Adjusted EBITDA growth of between 6% and 8%, implying continued margin expansion despite the increased costs of being a public company. As we've shared previously, the global commercial laundry industry grows at approximately 5% per year. Our 2026 guidance of 5%-7% revenue growth means we expect to continue to compound above the market. The demand environment has not changed, and we believe Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. will continue to outgrow the industry. Secondly, we will continue to invest in innovation and new product development. We have a robust pipeline planned across multiple categories with continued evolution of our physical products and digital platform to meet the growing demand for solutions across our end markets. Third, drive manufacturing and operational excellence. We will continue to invest approximately 3% of revenue in CapEx on top of the 2% of revenue we expect to spend annually on physical and digital product development and innovation. These investments will drive efficiency, they will add capacity, and they will allow us to accelerate profitable growth. Fourth is accelerate digital adoption. Our connected equipment base grew to 245,000 machines at year-end, up 25% year-over-year. This matters because every connected machine provides valuable insights to operators, allowing them to increase revenue and improve efficiency. We believe it makes us the obvious first choice when they buy. If we do it right, we will be the preferred choice when time comes to replace their equipment. Finally, maintain our disciplined approach to capital allocation, continuing to delever organically by thoughtfully investing in long-term growth opportunities and maintaining flexibility to opportunistically return capital to shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Dean to walk through the financial details.

Thanks, Michael. Starting on slide nine, I'll walk through our strong fourth quarter results and balance sheet position, then cover 2026 guidance and capital allocation. Fourth quarter net revenue was up 10% to $435 million versus the prior year. We saw real unit volume increases across our end markets, which contributed roughly half of the growth in the quarter with the balance from price. This reinforces what Michael said earlier. This is a demand-driven growth story supported by both volume and price that is consistent with the durable growth pattern we've seen in this industry over time. Q4 gross profit was up 16% to $161 million or 37% of revenue, with gross margin up 190 basis points versus the prior year. Margin expansion was driven by strong volume and successful cost down initiatives in the quarter and supported by pricing actions that largely offset the approximate $5 million impact of tariffs in the quarter. Q4 operating expenses were $97 million or 22.4% of revenue, including a $16 million non-cash charge for performance-based option vesting related to our IPO. Excluding this one-time item, operating expenses as a percentage of revenue were consistent with our expectations and reflect the full quarter impact of public company costs and our continued investments in commercial, engineering, and digital capabilities. Adjusted EBITDA was up 17% to $107 million or 24.5% of revenue in the quarter, which was a 140 basis point improvement in profitability. We are proud of the quality of our growth with revenue up 10% and Adjusted EBITDA up 17%. Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc.'s ability to consistently drop more to the bottom line than add at the top is a function of our scale advantage in operating discipline, plus strong incremental margins on higher volumes. Q4 adjusted net income was up 18% year-over-year to $49 million, which excludes the previously referenced vesting of stock options at IPO and other non-operating or non-recurring items. The improvement was driven by strong operating performance and significantly lower interest expense following our debt reduction actions. Our Q4 effective tax rate was 35.6%, resulting in a full-year effective tax rate of 26.3%. This is elevated versus the prior year due to approximately $4 million in discrete non-cash charges, primarily related to our transition to public company status and a valuation allowance increase against certain foreign tax credits. Excluding those items, our Q4 and full-year rates would have been 21.4% and 23.5% respectively. We ended the year with total debt of $1.4 billion, down from $2.1 billion at the start of the year, and cash of $123 million. Net debt of $1.2 billion represents a net leverage ratio of 2.8x Adjusted EBITDA, a reduction of 2.2 turns in a single year. Approximately 1 turn of that deleveraging was funded by cash from operations, which increased 46% versus the prior year, and from Adjusted EBITDA expansion, with the balance funded by IPO proceeds. Our strong operational cash generation demonstrates our capability to continue deleveraging going forward. Turning to slide 10 and drilling into the segments for Q4. North America revenue was up 9% to $317 million, with Adjusted EBITDA up 15% to $88 million and margin increasing to 27.9%. This margin level is consistent with our historical performance in the segment and reinforces our ability to expand Adjusted EBITDA margins as we scale on our existing manufacturing footprint. Growth in Q4 was broad-based across all three end markets. Our vended markets, both retail laundromats and communal laundry and multi-housing locations, delivered strong growth driven by new store development and existing operators modernizing their fleets with higher capacity digitally connected equipment. On-premise delivered solid results driven by predictable replacement demand that characterizes their end market, and commercial and home continued to outpace the industry. International Q4 revenue was up 12% to $118 million, with Adjusted EBITDA up 25% to $29 million. Our margin of 24.8% represents 260 basis points of expansion year-over-year. This margin expansion reflects both the mix benefit from a growing European business and improving operating leverage as we scale our international business on our existing manufacturing platform. Europe continued its strong momentum. Our total cost of ownership value proposition resonates strongly in this market as it has an operator base that is actively investing in fleet upgrades and energy efficiency. The margin profile of our European business is accretive to the overall international segment. As Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. continues to scale in this, it has a meaningful positive impact on segment-level profitability. In Asia-Pacific, the launch of our Stax-X stacked washer-dryer has been well-received. We've been encouraged with the early customer adoption and the meaningful long-term growth platform it represents heading into 2026 and beyond. For full year 2025, North America delivered revenue of $1.3 billion and Adjusted EBITDA of $361 million, both up 14% year-over-year. EBITDA margin remains strong at 28.5%, which speaks to the quality of growth we're generating in this segment. Again, growth was broad-based across all of our end markets, with attractive underlying volume growth complemented by continued price realization. Commercial and home significantly outpaced the industry as consumers continued to choose our brand for durability and reliability. Vended market growth was solid and supported by new store development and fleet modernization. On our on-premise laundry delivered steady growth through structural replacement cycles complemented by new locations. International delivered revenue up 10% to $440 million, with Adjusted EBITDA up 17% to $121 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 27.4% was up 160 basis points and reflected strong performance while continuing to make investments in emerging market expansion and sales infrastructure. Europe was a standout performer throughout the year, driven by our Speed Queen licensed store strategy. We saw ongoing growth in our licensed store model, as well as strong results across our direct sales offices in this region, with our licensed store model continuing to gain momentum and establish Speed Queen as the premium choice in European vended laundry. Growth in APAC was solid, with strong performance in our priority emerging markets, where population and urbanization drive laundry demand. We're establishing market leadership positions across the region and are leveraging our first-mover advantage as the vended laundry concept gains adoption and the on-premise laundry end market continues to develop. Our long-standing local-for-local manufacturing strategy with plants in the U.S., Europe, and two in Asia, each primarily serving their home markets, provided significant structural tariff protection relative to foreign competitors who are more exposed to duties on tariffs on imported products. We experienced modest tariff impact from certain imported components, which we largely offset on both a dollar and margin basis through selective pricing actions in 2025. Turning to slide 12 and initiating our 2026 full year guidance. We expect revenue growth of approximately 5%-7%, driven by balanced contributions from volume and price, and expect Adjusted EBITDA growth of approximately 6%-8%, continuing our long track record of profitable growth and strong margins. This above-market revenue growth reflects the strong tailwinds we have discussed and also takes into consideration normalization of benefits from customers who have returned following our 2022-2023 profitability initiatives, the outperformance of commercial and home, and the moderation of tariff-related pricing, each of which supported the double-digit growth over the past couple of years. As we considered our guidance, we anticipate year-over-year revenue growth to be stronger in the first half of 2026, driven by pricing carryover from actions taken in 2025, with volume growth more consistent across the entire year. We expect Adjusted EBITDA growth to be driven by gross margin expansion from pricing, cost down initiatives, and manufacturing leverage, partially offset by strategic investments in international markets, continued digital and engineering investments, and approximately $8 million in incremental public company costs. Public company cost impact is more heavily weighted to the first half of next year due to the second half prior year ramp up, and therefore, we anticipate margin expansion in 2026 to be weighted toward the back half of the year. We remain confident in our ability to generate free cash flow and expect to reduce leverage by approximately three-quarters of a turn in 2026, bringing us to the low 2x net debt leverage range by year-end. In addition, to assist with modeling in 2026, we expect CapEx as a percentage of revenue to be approximately 3% and anticipate an effective tax rate of approximately 23.5%, total interest expense of approximately $85 million, and diluted share count of approximately 205 million shares. Turning to slide 13 before I wrap up, I'll briefly touch on how we are continuing to prioritize capital allocation with the overarching goal of maximizing long-term shareholder value. First and foremost, deleveraging continues to be our top capital allocation priority. As I outlined earlier, we have a strong track record of reducing leverage by three-quarters to a full turn per year through free cash flow generation and EBITDA expansion alone. We are targeting net leverage in the low 2x range by year-end 2026. We also plan to continue investing behind high return growth opportunities, new products, capacity expansion, digital capabilities, and potentially selective tuck-in M&A that enhances our platform. These are the investments that should help sustain our competitive advantage and drive above-market growth, and we will continue to invest in these areas. Finally, we will maintain the flexibility to return capital to shareholders in the future when appropriate, through share repurchases in the nearer term and considering a potential dividend policy over the longer term. With that, let me turn it back to Michael.

Hey, thanks, Dean. Before we open it up for Q&A, I want to emphasize a few key points. One, we hold a leading market position as the only scaled pure play operator in a non-cyclical, recession-resistant, and essential industry. Two, we have a proven team and business model that have delivered strong results through every economic cycle, and the strategic clarity to continue doing so. Three, we are committed to creating long-term shareholder value through our disciplined growth, operational excellence, and balanced capital allocation. Over the past two decades, I have seen this business successfully navigate recessions, a global pandemic, and shifts in the competitive landscape. The fundamentals that have carried us through all of it are stronger today than they have ever been, and that is the foundation for our next chapter. I'll close by thanking our employees, distribution partners, customers, and shareholders for your continued support. We look forward to driving Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc.'s story and long-term value forward together. With that, let's open up the line for questions.

Yes, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, then return to the queue if needed. Our first question will come from Tomohiko Sano with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Congrats on the quarter. Thank you. My first question is, given the trends you saw in Q4, do you expect any notable differences in demand strength between North America and your international business or across your key segments as you target 5%-7% top line growth for 2026? Are there particular areas where you see more robust or softer demand, please? A follow-up on 2026 guidance: How are you factoring in outlook for steel cost, pricing power, and potential changes in tariff policy? Could you elaborate on assumptions you're making for each of these drivers and how sensitive your guidance is to movements in these areas, please?

Thanks, Tomohiko.

Thank you.

Yeah. I would say, Tomohiko, this is Michael, that again, we see really strong demand across all parts of the business. I do think given some of the volatility in the Middle East at the moment, you know, that's likely to be a little bit weaker, and that'll take some time to see how that ends. I would say across the board, we really do see strong opportunities, and that is across the business. There's none that I could think of, honestly, that would give me pause or concern. We've talked about, you know, sort of over-indexing a little bit on the laundromat piece in particular, right? Both in emerging markets as well as in more mature markets, such as Europe, and the U.S. and select Asian countries. But, you know, very, very strong across the board.

Yeah. So in steel we're locked, right? We have more than offset those cost increases both on steel as well as tariffs with some pricing actions that we took last year. They are both margin and dollar accretive. That is straight up. What was the second part of the question? I don't recall.

Tariff policy.

I'm not sure I answered that part.

Tariff policy.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, who knows? You tell me. We expect no change. Again, you guys are reading the news like we are, you know, if something does change, hey, we're ready to react. We expect that the administration will continue to find ways to keep those barriers in place. We do see, Tomohiko, competitors beginning to take action. That is something that we thought would happen, and it's playing out exactly that way.

Tomohiko, I would add that the steel and aluminum tariff duties that have been put in place were not part of the Supreme Court ruling. Those are still in place, and a competitive advantage for us against foreign competition in manufacturing in international locations, you know, imports into the U.S. We'll keep watching that, to Michael's point, from their pricing actions, and react accordingly, but we still think that's a tailwind for us in 2026.

Thank you, Michael, Dean.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Kyle Menges with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking the question, maybe, Michael, following up on your last comment, just what are you seeing from competitors that are facing more tariff impacts versus you guys? Just how do you see that relative tailwind unfolding as we progress throughout 2026? I know we've talked about this through the process, but do you see a different opportunity today than, say, a couple years ago? Was the fact that you had a couple in the same region more a function of what the go-to-market strategy was in that region versus a broader opportunity in other regions? And maybe just what's the funnel look like as far as bringing on more of your own distribution in the U.S.?

Yeah. I'll say, Michael, it was really a strategy we mapped out seven or eight years ago as we really embarked on it. We identified, you know, certain specific markets that we wanted to really make sure that we were present in a more meaningful way, and we had people that we could partner with. The last piece of that puzzle, and that's really what it was putting together identifying the markets and then getting in a position when we had the partnership with distribution. That sort of New York metro area in particular was an area where we just felt there was a lot that we could do. We had good partners, and we are incredibly excited about that. Those two recent acquisitions, we think there's more to do, but again, we are being very selective, and, you know, as those opportunities come up, they will be opportunistic. As I think I said to you should think of us as very capable of doing these acquisitions, but it is not something that is needed in order to continue to grow at an above market rate.

Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.

Yep.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Obin with Bank of America.

Yeah, good morning. Can you just break out the reasons why commercial and home has been so strong in 2025? Did you have distributors? Was the pricing impact more significant? Also, what does it mean for the comps in 2026 because first half growth was so strong?

Yeah. I'll remind you, Andrew, we have a very unique distribution strategy, and we have a very unique product. Let's talk about distribution, where again we go only through independent retailers. Our value proposition to those retailers is our product will be the most profitable product for them to sell. A big part of that is it is an incredible product that to use their terminology, it stays sold. It doesn't come back under warranty for quality or other problems which, you know, are plaguing a lot of consumers, and, so, you know, one different distribution, curated, defined, careful, allows that distribution network to be profitable. Very different than our competitive set in that part of the world. The second piece is that product quality and the differentiation and being really the only true professional grade washer and dryer available in the marketplace. You have seen some of our testing, you have seen some of our teardowns. When you take it apart, and you look at the guts and the internal, and you understand the drives and the transmission and the suspension and all of the things that go in where we are using steel, where others are using plastic, there is no comparison, right? It is a product that is highly desirable. I think as I said in my opening comments, everybody is looking for quality. That total cost of ownership, despite our price point, it is engineered to last, and I think that is resonating with people who are buying competitive product that is optimized for cost versus what our professional operators need for their business, which is quality, reliability, and durability.

Andrew, on the comp side, although we're not giving any detailed guidance on individual business units, we're not building in double-digit growth in this business in our guidance for 2026. The key is we do expect to continue to meaningfully outgrow the industry with really this replacement driven product, not tied to new home construction and things like that in other cycles. It's really a replacement driven upgraded product as we talked about in the prepared remarks. We're not forecasting double-digit growth in this market, although there's lots of opportunities as we move forward.

Okay. Just to make sure, no negative growth in the first half comps will remain. You can achieve growth even with the comps? Maybe what are you seeing out of the Middle East? I know it's like what? I think $60 million revenues for you. How should we think about that?

Absolutely. Yeah. Again, I think it's 5%, 6% of revenue, somewhere in that range. I don't think it's 6%, closer to the 5%. I would say, hey, it's something we're watching very closely. If it were to go significantly south, I don't think the impact on the company would be material, you know, we have a global sort of operating review that we do with all of our leaders. Middle East leader is thinking again that the impact I won't give you the exact dollar amount, but it is more than backstop with lots of other initiatives that we have going on. You know, we still think we're gonna have a pretty good year, and I can't comment on where they'll come in, but I think we'll be fine unless something you know really significant happens, in which case everybody's gonna be in a kind of a different boat.

All right. Terrific. Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Amit Mehrotra with UBS.

Thank you. Morning. Dean, I wanted to ask about the guidance and how you guys just simply approached it, you know, there's obviously your first full year guidance as a public company, and many companies approach guidance in many different ways, you know, some companies approach it as a floor that they're highly confident they can deliver, and maybe there's some upside to it. Maybe for companies like you who have recurring revenue streams, it's more a realistic view, because you are forecasting kind of low, you know, 3-ish% volume growth. I would assume maybe there's some opportunity to do a little bit better. Your guidance implies EBITDA incrementals kind of at 30%, which is lower than what you did in fourth quarter, even though the price volume dynamic is similar 4Q to 2026. Maybe just talk about, like, how you approach the guide in the context of maybe what seems to be a little bit of prudent conservatism.

Well, I would say thanks for the question. First of all, I think that's a great one because as a new public company, this is something we take very, very seriously in the way in which we're guiding. I think, number one, the replacement driven characteristic of our business provides us confidence in what we are guiding from a top line perspective. The opportunities we have in margin expansion, the continued cost down initiatives, the significant leverage we get on incremental margins from our fixed cost base give us confidence in our ability to continue to expand margins, the bottom line more than the top line. Having said that, it's, you know, there's a lot of things going on in the world that we don't control. I think we're being prudent with regard to our guidance. We wanna make sure that we do what we say we're gonna do, which is a characteristic of the company for a long time. I would say we're confident in our ability to hit these numbers, and we have opportunities to beat them that we will hopefully be able to unfold as the year progresses. Hopefully that helps.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that does help. Thank you, Dean. Yeah. Can you hear me? Just wanna make sure I'm not on mute.

Yes.

Yeah. Hey, Michael, I wanted to follow up on maybe a bigger picture question 'cause one thing that resonates with me when you speak, you're very consistent about the mission of the company, the sole focus on laundry, the full focus on quality. It's definitely a hallmark for great companies, this sort of very clear vision and mission of what you're trying to accomplish. I guess as we think about how that translates to growth, there's a couple different, you know, ways to approach that. One is obviously the quality is what sells. What I'm more interested in is are there new product introductions or new incremental revenue streams, whether it's your distribution channel that you're acquiring or just new product introductions that may be accelerating that put more outgrowth in your control as opposed to just, you know, the quality dynamic that's very clear and exists for a long time. Maybe you can just help us think about how much of the outgrowth you can actually have in your control with respect to either changes in how you go to market or enhances how you go to market or new product introductions.

Yeah. Again, I think you know you heard us talk about the investments we've made in the laboratories actually testing. If you think about our value proposition to our customers, it is you know those things we talked about, the low total cost of ownership. The worst thing you can do is launch a product before it's ready. That is why we do, and it takes a lot of time to test and then test again and test again. The consequence of that is the rollout of these new innovative product. Certainly we touched on, for example, our lint capture system, right? That is very very significant in terms of the innovation. If you are an operator in a hotel property or an operator in a laundromat or whatever it is, like, that ability to do that drives efficiency, it drives a lot of value. Rolling that out across the rest of our product line, you know, that's certainly top of mind, and you'll see that continue to happen. We do have an innovation team that's working on a series of things, but I would say the ones that, you know, we feel good about and that are faster to roll out are more on the digital side. I've equated that to, you know, the brain is the physical, mechanical, electrical product. But when you complement that with a very, very smart brain and our ability to bring insights to that operator, it's an extraordinary value proposition. It's kind of a one-two punch thinking about it a slow, steady but proven, tried, tested. You buy a product from us, it's not going to be something you will experiment with. It's a little slower on that side, but steady, consistent, and complemented with the digital side, which is faster. Again, we have been at this for a long, long time. We believe we've been at it much, much longer than any competitor. To get the digital right, you need the teams, right? You need a lot of software developers. You need data in really big quantities to be able to get things like predictive analytics and others. But we feel very, very confident about that. There are other avenues that we're talking about. I think we spoke on how we're looking at aftermarket, which is accessories. It includes consumables, right? I think also on the parts side, we see opportunity, really throughout. Hopefully, that answered the question for you.

Yeah. Yeah, it does, Michael. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you. Our next question will come from Susan Maklari with Goldman Sachs.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My first question is, thinking about the price mix dynamic in North America. I think you mentioned that you're not planning on an additional price increase in the U.S. or in North America this year. As you think about the more recently launched products and digital initiatives, can you talk a bit about how they're gaining momentum, where we are in that process, and how we should think about their contribution to price mix this year? Yeah. Okay. That, that's helpful color. Turning to the balance sheet and the cash flows, as you do approach that 2x leverage by year-end, can you talk about what you're looking for and how we should think about the potential to start with some shareholder returns, you know, maybe buybacks, those kinds of things where you have some flexibility?

Morning, Susan. Yeah. I would say it's complementary. Look, on the initial launches of product, let's talk about that and the innovation, for example, on our lint capture system. We're providing more value, so the pricing reflects that value. We feel confident about it, you know, we go through a lot of analysis here in terms of, hey, what does that mean for the operator? If we can save them energy, if we can get them better efficiency. All those things are reflected. Again, it's slow, steady, more incremental in nature. It takes time. I will also say that the industry on the professional side, right, they really wanna make sure that innovation is exactly what I talked about, tested and tried and true. They'll dip a toe in. It takes a bit. That's why I characterize it as incremental in nature. On the digital side, look, I think what we're very focused on is really driving differentiation, driving unit volumes through the factory. We view it as complementary. We think that over time, right, we can add and get that to where it is more meaningful in terms of the revenue and margin that it contributes to the business, right? It's all embedded, and it's sort of a package is the way we think about it.

Sure. Yeah. Thanks. I, you know, I think, number one, we're very proud of our deleveraging trajectory, and the strength of our free cash flow really allows us that multipronged approach to continue deleveraging, while also investing in the business and considering those other types of capital allocation opportunities that you talked about. We view 2x leverage as a comfort level from the balance sheet perspective. That having said, we don't view 2x as a floor. Given our cash flow generation, we could operate comfortably below 2x in the near term. Deleveraging continues to, you know, be our number one capital allocation priority. To your point, we will consider buybacks in the market as our majority shareholder monetizes their investment and sells down over time. Right?

That is still an opportunity for us. As we said in the prepared remarks, you know, given our strong free cash flow and our opportunities to invest in multiple things, to return capital to shareholders, a dividend policy longer term for this company might make sense given that strong free cash flow. There's a lot of opportunities at our fingertips, and we're really excited about, you know, those many different things that we can do to create that shareholder value while continuing to invest in the business at a scale that no one else, the competition can.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you for all the color, and good luck with the quarter.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our last question will come from Ketan Mamtora with BMO Capital Markets.

Good morning and congrats on a strong quarter and year. Maybe to start with, can you talk a little bit about your M&A pipeline and which areas or geographies you think you've got the most opportunity as you think about growth in the coming 12-24 months?

Yeah. Again, I would emphasize that we do not need acquisitions to continue to grow at an above market rate. That's the first thing I would comment. I said we've done 16 or 17, mostly, you know, tuck-ins here in the U.S. I think the opportunity to do more is there, but we will be very, very selective. We will do it when we have partners who we are confident in and partners who, you know, want to do that. It is part of our strategy. It is not something that is core or required. I would say the opportunities are limited on that side, but we will be opportunistic. There are things that you don't anticipate, where, you know, principals in markets that matter, that have the density, that drive profitability, change their mind, and all of a sudden are interested in partnering, so, you know, we're talking to people, we're out there, but it is not core. Again, we believe very, very much in independent distribution. Again, when we can, you know, partner, enroll them into the rest of the Alliance Laundry Holdings Inc. business, hey, it makes sense. On that part, very clear, you know, we talked about the international facilities. We have lots of opportunity to grow, so we do not need anything on that side. The same thing, we are opportunistic. We are always looking. We are talking to folks. I'm not going to disclose, you know, where they are, but again, we feel pretty good about it. There's probably one or two that would be interesting. None of those are, you know, really, really significant. I don't know if I'm being detailed enough for you, but that's how we think about it, right? We've got everything we need, everything we need to continue to grow at an elevated rate.

Got it. No, that's helpful perspective. Then just one more follow-up on the international side, related to the Middle East. You talked about, you know, sort of watching the demand side there. Are there sort of any potential supply chain disruptions that could impact other markets in the region that we should think about?

Yeah. I'll say for right now, again, our local-for-local manufacturing strategy, where we are sourcing, building and selling in those markets, we don't see any disruption that we're aware of on the supply chain side. I'm not aware of any, zero, you know, again, transit times, things like that, as you know, you're trying to get product from one part to another, which is de minimis, again, because most of those markets they are manufactured locally. Some of that will impact. It is going to impact the Middle East for sure and Africa. But again, we feel really. It's almost like the tariff thing where we're not immune, but we are highly insulated for any of that noise that you know is happening in that region.

Perfect. No, that's very helpful. Good luck. Thank you.

Thank you.