Rajiv K. Prasad
Alright. Thanks, Andrea, and good morning, everyone. I will start by sharing how we see the current economic landscape unfolding, how those dynamics are shaping customer behavior, and how we are positioning the company in response. After that, I will walk through our expectations for 2026, before turning over the call to Al for his closing remarks. The global lift truck market remained challenged in the fourth quarter, with year-over-year declines across all regions and truck classes. However, despite that broad pressure, we began to see an important divergence emerge late in the year. North America showed meaningful sequential improvement relative to quarter three. This uptick translated into stronger bookings and a noticeable improvement in customer engagement, as an encouraging contrast to EMEA and JAPIC, where demand contracted sequentially as customers remained cautious amid macro uncertainty. This brings me to the underlying customer mindset. Across all regions, customers are still heavily focused on cash preservation, higher financing costs, and fleet utilization. As a result, many continue to defer capital spending, especially for higher-duty equipment. This has suppressed ordering activity outside of North America. Against this difficult backdrop, our quarter four booking performance stood out as a meaningful positive development. Bookings increased to $540 million, up significantly from $380 million in quarter three and $400 million in the prior year quarter. The Americas drove most of this increase, with particular strong traction in core counterbalance Class 5 trucks in the 1 to 3.5 ton range. Looking at the first two months of 2026, we have seen the positive booking momentum persist. North America industry demand recovery is continuing, outperforming our expectations. The company’s own bookings are ahead of prior year, driven primarily by continued strength in our core counterbalance trucks and solid performance in the Americas. This reinforces our view that the underlying recovery is gaining traction as we enter 2026. But the more notable shift is why bookings have improved. Customers began converting quotes into firm orders at a materially higher rate, suggesting extended backlog delivery is now complete, greater clarity around their operational needs, rising urgency, and early signs that replacement cycles, which have been deferred, are starting to reengage. This shift, combined with the increasingly aged fleet and rising maintenance costs, supports our view that replacement-driven demand may be gaining momentum as we enter 2026. Stepping back, it is important to underscore that 2025 was a difficult year after two very good years, one marked by high tariff costs, softer industry demand, and heightened customer caution. Many customers were still taking delivery of equipment ordered during long lead-time windows, stretching fleet lives, and delaying normal replacement cycles. We now believe many are nearing natural replacement timing. This is a key element behind our cautious optimism going into 2026. As we exited the year, backlog totaled $1.28 billion, reflecting shipments outpacing new orders, especially within EMEA, where recovery will have lagged due to delayed orders and industry shifting towards lighter-duty, lower-priced products. Sequential backlog decline was driven primarily by lower unit volumes partially offset by higher average selling prices tied to material and component costs. Constant movement further reduced the translated value of backlogs. Now let me bridge that to what we are seeing in early 2026. Early-year bookings have been strong across all regions. Even though shipments began the year at lower levels than quarter four, if this trend continues—and we expect it will—bookings should begin to outpace shipments, allowing backlog to rebuild towards a more normalized three- to four-month level. This, in turn, supports more efficient production planning. Pulling these pieces together, we expect quarter one 2026 to mark the trough of the current cycle, primarily reflecting the lower order intake levels from earlier in 2025. As we move through the year, improving customer confidence, stronger bookings, and backlog building should allow production and shipments to expand gradually, with meaningfully stronger volumes expected in 2026. Even as volumes trend upwards, near-term margin pressure is likely to persist. Here is why. The market continues shifting towards lighter-duty, lower-priced models. Competitive pricing, particularly from foreign manufacturers in Europe and South America, remains aggressive, and this has reduced shipments in traditionally higher-margin categories. Despite the challenging backdrop, our approach remains consistent, focused on what we can control, and on making disciplined, forward-looking investments that position the company for transformation which will accelerate when the market turns. Our priorities remain the same: rigorous working capital management, tight operational discipline, accelerated technology and product development, and continuous data-driven monitoring of leading indicators across customers and suppliers. We have been through many market cycles, and that experience reinforces an important point: resilience and readiness matter. While we cannot control external forces, we can control how we operate. That is why we are concentrating on efficiency, productivity, innovation, and responsible cash management. To deliver on these priorities, we are executing transformation programs across several fronts. Product strategy. We have introduced new modular and scalable platforms to address these evolving segments. While these offerings strengthen our long-term competitive position, margins will remain pressured until they gain full market traction. Operational efficiency. We are streamlining operations, managing inventory more tightly, and improving working capital efficiency. These actions help generate cash, even when revenues and profits are under pressure. Manufacturing flexibility. Our modular vehicle platforms allow us to build the same models in multiple regions. This flexibility helps us adapt quickly to tariff changes, logistic challenges, or supply chain disruptions. Customer engagement. We are strengthening our relationships with dealers and end customers. By listening closely and co-developing solutions, we are aligning our product roadmap with the real challenges customers are facing today. Product innovation. We are accelerating new product launches and introducing technologies that improve performance, lower total cost of ownership, and help us stand out in the market. Market readiness. We are watching leading indicators closely so we can scale quickly when conditions improve. Our goal is to be a first mover as soon as demand begins to recover. Global optimization. We are aligning our manufacturing footprint and supply chain to improve cost competitiveness and responsiveness across all regions. These actions are helping us manage the current environment with agility and discipline. They are also strengthening our long-term structure, lowering our breakeven point, and improving product margins so earnings become more resilient over time. Our overarching goal is clear: Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. is the first mover when demand accelerates, enabled to scale quickly and capture profitable growth. To further support our long-term position, we have taken decisive action to lower our cost structure and strengthen resilience across market cycles, which include the VERA strategic realignment executed in 2025 that delivered $15 million of cost savings in 2025, and redeployed resources to higher-growth opportunities; a company-wide restructuring program launched in 2025 targeting $40 to $45 million of annualized savings beginning in 2026; and manufacturing footprint optimization initiatives that began in 2024 and are expected to deliver $20 to $30 million in benefit in 2027 with full annualized savings of $30 to $40 million by 2028. In total, we expect recurring annualized savings of $85 to $100 million by 2028 compared to the beginning of 2025 before inflationary cost increases. I will now move to discuss tariffs, which remain a major external factor. We have outlined our assumptions regarding tariff costs in the earnings release, which were prior to the IEPA decision. With these assumptions, forecasted tariff costs are expected to remain broadly consistent with quarter four 2025 levels throughout 2026. While we have implemented pricing, sourcing, and cost initiatives, we do not expect to fully offset tariff impacts. Benefits from mitigation actions are expected to increase beginning in quarter two 2026, so year-over-year comparisons will remain unfavorable early in the year. We are also monitoring recent legal developments related to tariffs. The Supreme Court’s ruling was limited to IEPA tariffs and did not invalidate other tariffs or address potential refunds, which, if required, would likely take years to resolve. Broader implications for trade policy remain uncertain, and additional tariff-related decisions will likely continue to be challenged in court. They could affect how certain tariffs are applied and how related costs or potential recoveries are recognized. These mitigation efforts should begin contributing more meaningfully in quarter two 2026, so early-year comparisons will remain unfavorable.