UL Solutions Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

UL Solutions (NYSE:ULS) reported third-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation.

View the webcast at https://viavid.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1778492&tp_key=6391aeae62

Summary

UL Solutions reported strong third quarter 2026 results, with organic revenue growth accelerating to 7%, the highest in six quarters, and a record adjusted EBITDA margin of 28.6%, driven by productivity improvements and pricing initiatives.

Strategic initiatives included expansion of certification programs for AI data centers, acquisition of Eurofins’ electrical and electronics business, and divestiture of non-core assets to enhance focus on core growth areas.

The company highlighted a robust demand environment, particularly in certification testing, and expects continued growth driven by product complexity and evolving safety requirements.

UL Solutions maintained a strong cash flow and investment-grade balance sheet, allowing strategic investments of $891 million in 2026, including $692 million in acquisitions.

Management expressed confidence in achieving full-year objectives with an improved outlook for 2026, expecting 6.5% organic revenue growth and a 27% adjusted EBITDA margin, despite a dynamic macro environment.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Hello and welcome to the UL Solutions third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require the operator’s assistance during the conference, you may press star then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Ms. Yujing Brentano, Vice President of Investor Relations at UL Solutions.

Thank you. You may begin.

Yujing Brentano (Vice President of Investor Relations)

Thank you, and welcome everyone to our third quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Jenny Scanlon, our Chief Executive Officer, and Ryan Robinson, our Chief Financial Officer. During our discussion today, we will be referring to our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at ul.com. Our earnings release is also available on the website. I would like to remind everyone that on today’s call we may discuss forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may include, among other things, statements about UL Solutions, results of operations and estimates and prospects that involve substantial risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ in a material way from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.

Please see the Disclosure statement on Slide 2 of the Earnings Presentation as well as the disclaimers in our earnings release concerning forward-looking statements and the risk factors that are described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025 and subsequent SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, except as required by law.

Today’s presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the Appendix to the Earnings Presentation, which is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at ul.com. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jenny.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us. We had another strong quarter reflecting broad-based growth and continued operating momentum across the business. Organic revenue growth accelerated to 7%, the highest level in six quarters, continuing our growth trajectory since our IPO. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 90 basis points to a quarterly record of 28.6% driven by ongoing productivity improvements, pricing initiatives and business optimization.

Since becoming a public company, we have expanded adjusted EBITDA margin by roughly 500 basis points and we expect our performance to further improve. It’s a great story, a growth story. Our resilience and ability to convert revenue growth into higher profitability and cash flow in the face of changing macroeconomic environments globally has been well demonstrated. As AI and data centers advance and consume investment by hyperscalers, colocators and every type of industry, our long-term customers are turning to us as safety science experts to ensure the products and ecosystems being developed are trusted. That is the case both for the end consumer served by our customers and in large industrial applications. Today, our safety science matters for AI in accelerating product development, market access and adoption just as it proved essential in other technology revolutions of the last century.

We work with more than 60% of the Fortune 500. The drivers of our strong third quarter performance include double-digit growth in certification testing, strength in materials, energy and automation and consumer technology, along with measurable productivity improvements. As products like appliances and medical devices and assets like large power and automation systems become more interconnected, our services and technical expertise provide customers with a solid foundation for ongoing innovation, reliability and trust.

Backed by over 130 years of experience, our sustained robust cash flow and investment-grade balance sheet put us in a great position to selectively and strategically invest in new capabilities across our industrial, consumer and risk and compliance software segments. As manufacturers face the need for greater trust sought by their end users in products, ecosystems and supply chains, our disciplined portfolio management supports the pursuit of attractive growth opportunities.

Today I will focus on three themes: the enduring strength of our underlying business, the continued improvement in our operating performance and the strategic investments supporting our long-term value creation. Starting with our TIC business, both the industrial and consumer segments reported strong organic growth and record quarterly adjusted EBITDA margins. Industrial remains our primary growth and margin engine as organic revenue increased 8.4% and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 150 basis points to a quarterly record of 36.1%. Consumer continued to perform well, achieving 5.9% organic revenue growth despite an approximately 150 basis point headwind from planned business exits.

Consumer adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 170 basis points to a quarterly record of 21.4%, reflecting a more focused operating model. In risk and compliance software, our focus remains on supporting our manufacturing customers and their supply chains in their growing need for essential regulatory data and compliance insights. At the same time, we are aligning the cost structure with the reshaped, focused portfolio. Importantly, our consolidated growth continues to be boosted by demand for our certification services required to bring new innovations safely to global markets. Certification testing revenue increased nearly 11% while ongoing certification services grew over 7%. Together, these services are the fuel for our strong base of recurring revenue in our TIC business.

Beyond our current performance, we continue to invest in organic opportunities that extend our value proposition, expand our participation in attractive markets, and leverage our existing infrastructure to generate profitable growth. As I mentioned earlier, the AI data center ecosystem is a particularly attractive area. During the quarter, we launched three certification programs supporting the next generation of the AI data center ecosystem, addressing power distribution, power conversion and liquid cooling.

We also expanded our HVAC Center of Excellence in Plano, Texas to support testing for advanced cooling technologies. These types of investments are intended to extend our capabilities in emerging technologies and support customers as new markets and technologies develop, which have led to our double-digit certification testing growth. During the quarter, we also expanded our retail sector testing capabilities in Europe and the United States, broadening our service offerings and leveraging existing facilities to support incremental growth in non-certification testing. These investments address increasing customer demand for comprehensive testing services while also improving our productivity. Across these initiatives, our strategy remains consistent: invest in capabilities where we have differentiated expertise, expand our participation in attractive markets, and leverage our existing infrastructure to generate profitable growth.

I’m proud that in 2026 we also actively reshaped our portfolio to solidify our position as a leader in product TIC services and focused our capabilities in risk and compliance software on customers’ expanding needs for supply chain insights and compliance. In TIC, we exited businesses as part of an overall restructuring plan and acquired Eurofins’ electrical and electronics business, adding substantial capacity and expertise to our core business.

In risk and compliance software, we sold our employee health and safety software business in April as it had diminishing strategic value. In July, we bolstered our capabilities by acquiring Evnia Consulting Firm, Inc., a thought leader in extended producer responsibility, known as EPR management and environmental compliance services. EPR is a policy approach in which customers are made responsible for the entire lifespan of their products, especially what happens after consumers throw them away.

These portfolio moves align with our strategy of building ULTRAS as an AI-first product and supply chain compliance and intelligence platform. On October 1, we completed the acquisition of Eurofins’ E&E business, a highly complementary asset that expands our consumer segment by creating opportunities to leverage our combined capabilities, accreditations and laboratory networks. We intend to broaden customer relationships, increase laboratory utilization, and cross-sell our fulsome set of services to new customers and new markets. Over the last few weeks, I’ve visited some of our new E&E colleagues in Europe, the US and in Asia.

Universally, I heard excitement about them joining a global leader in product TIC and the opportunities ahead to expand their reach and effectiveness. We are excited to continue with the integration process and expect back-office integration to be substantially complete in 2027, with go-to-market and lab utilization synergies largely realized by the end of 2028. And just last week we completed the sale of our stake in DQs for approximately $117 million.

Together, these activities advance our strategy of pursuing acquisitions and portfolio refinements that enhance our ability to serve product manufacturers as they expand investments into their next generation of product innovations. As CEO, one of the most important decisions I make is how we best deploy capital to meet our customers’ needs and to generate high return on invested capital for our shareholders. As such, our approach to capital allocation remains disciplined.

We will continue to evaluate opportunities to expand our capabilities and geographic reach while applying rigorous strategic and financial criteria to our investments. Now turning to the demand environment, we believe demand remains healthy across our businesses. Based on what we’ve seen so far in the fourth quarter, we expect to continue to benefit from increasing product complexity, evolving safety requirements and the need for independent testing and certification as customers introduce new innovations. The breadth of our customer base, the recurring nature of ongoing certification services, and our exposure to long-term growth trends support the resilience of our business.

Looking ahead, we are confident in our ability to build on our momentum through strategic investments and continued improvements in operating discipline. Now I’ll turn the call over to Ryan for a detailed review of our third quarter results and our updated full year 2026 outlook.

Ryan Robinson (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you, Jenny, and hello everyone. I also want to thank our team members around the world for another excellent quarter of execution. Let me walk through the quarter in detail. Consolidated revenue of $823 million was up 5.1% over the prior-year quarter, including organic revenue growth of 7%. Adjusted EBITDA was a quarterly record of $235 million, an improvement of 8.3% year over year, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 90 basis points to a quarterly record of 28.6%. Net income was $117 million, up 10.4% year over year, with net income margin of 14.2%, up 70 basis points. Diluted earnings per share were $0.53, up from $0.49 in the third quarter of 2025.

Adjusted net income was $135 million, up 13.4% from the third quarter of 2025, with adjusted net income margin of 16.4%, up 120 basis points. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.62, up 10.7% from the prior-year period. For the nine months ended September 30, 2026, organic revenue growth was 6.4%, with total revenue growth of 5.9%, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 180 basis points to 27.2%. Importantly, this margin expansion includes the impact of acquisition and divestiture transaction costs, which were approximately $11 million higher than the prior-year period, representing an impact of roughly 40 basis points to both operating income and adjusted EBITDA margin.

We have provided some additional detail on page 2623 of the presentation posted to our investor relations website. Now let me turn to our performance by segment, starting with Industrial. Revenues in Industrial rose 8.2% to $410 million, or 8.4% organically. Excluding advisory services, Industrial organic revenue grew approximately 9%. Growth was led by strength in Energy and Automation and in Materials, with continued momentum in ongoing certification services and certification testing. Adjusted EBITDA in Industrial increased 13% to a quarterly record of $148 million, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 150 basis points to a record 36.1%.

Operating margin improved 50 basis points to 29.3%, reflecting operating leverage and higher employee productivity. Turning to the Consumer segment, revenues were $360 million, up 5.9% both in total and on an organic basis, driven by strength in non-certification testing and services and certification testing, with higher demand in consumer technology and in retail. This organic growth was despite an approximately 150 basis point reduction from the previously announced business exits under our restructuring plan. Adjusted EBITDA for Consumer was $77 million, an increase of 14.9% versus the third quarter of last year, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 170 basis points to a record 21.4%.

Operating margin improved 70 basis points to 12.5%. The improvement reflects operating leverage, higher employee productivity, favorable mix, and the continued benefit of our restructuring actions. In our Risk and Compliance Software segment, revenues were $53 million, a decrease of 17.2% year over year, reflecting the divestiture of our EHS software business which closed on April 1. Excluding that impact, the segment grew 4.7% organically, driven by increased demand for supply chain insights, and in the retail industry. Adjusted EBITDA for Risk and Compliance Software was $10 million compared to $19 million in the third quarter of 2025, which was a strong quarter of revenue growth and profitability.

Adjusted EBITDA includes a $10 million reduction from the EHS divestiture, negative operating leverage from a smaller revenue base, and some transaction costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 18.9% compared to 29.7% in the prior-year quarter. Now turning to cash flow and the balance sheet. For the trailing twelve months ended September 30, 2026, we generated $738 million of cash from operating activities, up 25.9%, and $481 million of free cash flow, up 23.7% year over year. We ended the quarter with total debt of $766 million, and we continue to maintain a strong investment-grade balance sheet which provided the flexibility to fund the E&E acquisition alongside our other capital priorities.

Subsequent to quarter-end, we also sold our stake in DQS for approximately $117 million, and we expect to record a pre-tax gain of approximately $93 million in the fourth quarter within other income, outside of operating income, and it will be excluded from our adjusted measures. As of October 30, 2026, after the close of the E&E transaction and the sale of the DQS stake, our total debt was $689 million. We paid a quarterly dividend of 14.5 cents per share, or $29 million, during the third quarter.

Consistent with the increased dividend we announced at the start of the quarter, our strong cash generation and disciplined balance sheet management positioned us to invest with confidence. We invested approximately $891 million in 2026 to grow and to become more efficient, including $692 million of strategic acquisitions, which include the E&E acquisition, and $199 million of capital investments. While returning $88 million to shareholders through dividends, we also unlocked approximately $318 million in value from non-strategic assets.

Importantly, we have maintained the financial flexibility to pursue additional growth opportunities both organically and through strategic acquisitions. Now turning to our full-year 2026 outlook. The macro environment remains dynamic, but demand has remained resilient and our execution has been strong. Based on our strong performance through the first nine months, we’re strengthening our full-year 2026 constant currency organic revenue growth to approximately 6.5%, inclusive of approximately 70 basis points of revenue reduction from business exits associated with our restructuring plan. When we announced the restructuring plan, we had estimated the revenue impact would be approximately 1%.

However, we’ve been able to retain customers and relocate work to other locations. For full-year adjusted EBITDA margin, we expect improvement to approximately 27.0%, driven by approximately 200 basis points of underlying margin expansion, partially offset by approximately 90 basis points of incremental transaction costs versus 2025. Included in our outlook is E&E’s expected approximately $50 million of fourth quarter revenue and margin performance in line with our expectations.

As Jenny mentioned, we have begun our integration activities and expect to complete back-office integration by the end of 2027. As detailed on the last page of our earnings presentation, transaction and integration costs are expected to total approximately $37 to $40 million for the full year of 2026, representing approximately 120 basis points for the full year. That compares with approximately 30 basis points impact in 2025. We expect our full-year effective tax rate to be approximately 26% and full-year capital expenditures of approximately 8.5% of revenue, primarily geared towards high-return growth investments.

We remain focused on continuing to pursue acquisitions and portfolio refinements consistent with our capital allocation strategy. Overall, our year-to-date results demonstrate consistent profitable growth, continued margin expansion, and disciplined capital deployment. We’re pleased with the completion of the E&E acquisition and the DQS sale, and we believe our strong cash generation and investment-grade balance sheet provide the flexibility to invest in future capabilities while pursuing attractive growth opportunities.

We remain well positioned to achieve our full-year objectives and create durable long-term value. Now let me turn the call back to Jenny for her closing remarks.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Thanks, Ryan. Over the past few weeks, members of our leadership team and I hosted more than 300 industry leaders in Chicago and Asia at events in Chicago, Taipei, and Nanjing, China. We brought together customers and external experts to discuss market trends, evolving technology, and the trust challenges shaping the future. A highlight of these events was the opportunity to commemorate some of our longest-standing customer relationships. We recognized Honeywell Technologies, Eaton, and Schneider Electric for their 100-plus year collaboration with us and celebrated 35 additional customers for 50-plus years of engagement.

This is truly remarkable. We are so grateful for these enduring relationships and the opportunity to foster exchange of the deep expertise needed to pave the way for safer, trusted innovation around the world. In closing, our third quarter performance reinforces the durability of our growth, the strength of our operating model, and the value of our disciplined investment strategy. We entered the final quarter of 2026 with strong momentum and remain focused on delivering sustainable value for our customers, employees, and shareholders. Thank you to our teams around the world for your dedication to our mission of working for a safer world. With that, we’ll open the line for questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions.

The first question is from Andrew Nicholas from William Blair. Please go ahead.

Andrew Nicholas (Analyst)

Hi, good morning. I appreciate you taking my questions. First, I wanted to talk about third quarter results and hoping you could speak to the split between price and volume across your major revenue categories.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Absolutely. And I’ll turn it over to Ryan to go into the details on that. But, you know, we are pleased that we saw growth across all of our businesses and all over the world.

Ryan Robinson (Chief Financial Officer)

We’re pleased with our revenue growth, and we had contributions from both price and volume. In the third quarter, we had a slightly higher contribution from volume. And then within certification testing in particular, that you saw had strong double-digit growth, more of that contribution was from volume.

Andrew Nicholas (Analyst)

Very helpful, thank you. And then for my second question, I wanted to ask, I think the FCC recently voted to prohibit Chinese labs from testing electronic devices for U.S. market authorization. I was hoping you could kind of walk through the puts and takes there, how it would potentially impact UL Solutions, whether it’s positive or negative. Thank you.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah, absolutely, Andrew. And we do not expect a material impact from this announcement. We do perform a broad range of services in China, and as you know, last year China was 25% of our revenue. And this announcement would affect a small percentage of that, largely in our Consumer segment. But the great news about our business and the way that we run it is that we have a global network of accredited labs that lets us work with our customers to adjust where we test their products.

And, of course, we will test in accordance with the rules. So we’ll be working with our customers, we’ll minimize the disruption to them, and we’ll rely upon our global lab network. As you know, we continue to see these rules evolve.

Andrew Nicholas (Analyst)

Thank you very much.

OPERATOR

The next question is from George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. George Tong, your line is open. The next question is from Andrew Steinemann from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Andrew Steinemann (Analyst)

Hi, I would like to ask you about the momentum in UL Solutions’ business as it relates to the data center industry build-out. As you go through the current quarter, the fourth quarter, into next year, does that end market have the same type of pull for safety testing as it did this year?

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Absolutely. It’s a great question, Andrew. And those customer events that we had that I cited in my opening comments, data centers and AI factories as they’re frequently called, is certainly, you know, the hot topic right now. I think the best place to look as to the effect of data centers on our demand and our growth is in the certification testing. And as we said, our certification testing revenue was up almost 11% year on year, which I think really reflects the innovations that our customers are pursuing to keep up with the ever-evolving ecosystem and demand for these new architectures.

We continue to see this momentum. It’s why we’ve announced new certifications and continue to work with our customers on outlines of investigation, and we will continue to support this, you know, very dynamic innovation environment that we’re seeing.

Andrew Nicholas (Analyst)

Okay, thanks, Jenny.

OPERATOR

The next question is from Josh Chan from UBS. Please go ahead.

Josh Chan (Analyst)

Hi, good morning, Jenny, Ryan. I wanted to ask about the recent lab capacity increases that you’ve announced. How should we think about those capacity as it aligns to your base business and how that capacity increases shaped toward 2027? Thank you.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah. You know, our lab investments, when we look at those organic investments, and we’ve had a number of announcements this year in recent openings in both industrial and consumer, and we use our organic investments to fuel growth in the areas where our customers are demonstrating that there will be durable demand and that it’s an extension of either our geographic footprint or deepening our capabilities and certainly taking advantage of our recent infrastructure.

I think the recent announcement of the Plano HVAC Center of Excellence is a great example of that. We have long time been a leader in cooling technologies. This footprint expands our capabilities into even larger commercial-grade cooling than we had previously had in the past, draws upon a location that we already had and extends the capabilities of the experts that we have. So that’s how we think about capex and continuing to grow by our organic investments.

Josh Chan (Analyst)

Great. Thank you for the color there. And then on the E and E assumption for Q4, I know, Ryan, you said 50 million of revenue, which makes sense. What level of profitability are you building in for E and E initially? And then can you talk about sort of the path to realizing any synergies that you might be planning for the business? Thanks.

Ryan Robinson (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you very much. So first to point out, we said our outlook was driven by two components, approximately 200 basis points of underlying margin expansion, and the E and E contribution is part of that 200. So the performance so far and our expectations are in line with what we had thought initially. We’re excited about the opportunity. We have a clear path to integration. I think we’ve modified our comments to say we expect to complete back-end integration in 2027.

Our path to go to market and lab efficiency we expect to be largely complete by the end of 2028. We do expect to incur some integration costs in 2027, but that will be factored into our overall performance and outlook that we report at the end of the year.

Josh Chan (Analyst)

Great. Thanks and congrats on the quarter.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Thank you very much.

OPERATOR

The next question is from Stephanie Moore from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Stephanie Moore (Analyst)

Great. Good morning. Thank you, guys. Good morning. So you’re on track to deliver, I guess, roughly 200 basis points of underlying margin expansion in 2026, another record year for the company. As you look into 2027 and I guess the years after, what are the biggest drivers of the next leg of margin improvement? How should we think about, I guess, continued employee productivity? You’ve talked about AI and automation, a lot of strategic investments you’ve made in 2026, including some divestitures.

Where are the biggest opportunities for the next leg of margin improvement? Thank you.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah, absolutely. Because our quest for margin expansion never ends and our jobs are never finished here. The ongoing productivity improvements, I would say that is job one for us, and that is both using extension of our lab capabilities, better applying AI to our processes, and AI that’s both available through, you know, commercial off-the-shelf technologies that we use like Salesforce and Oracle, as well as internal systems that we use. So that type of continuous improvement is ongoing.

We’ve also talked about pricing initiatives and continuation of pricing. As Ryan indicated, we saw some real strength in volume growth, and applying the right pricing initiatives as we continue to see that volume growth also provides some great opportunities for expansion. And then, as we’ve always said, we will continue to refine and optimize our businesses. You know, the exits in consumer this year, which were planned, you know, were lower margin and lower growth.

And even as we look at risk and compliance software, the EHS that we divested earlier this year was lower growth and would have required, you know, significant future investment with probably less upside to it. So we’re making those refinements to also help continue to expand our margins on an ongoing basis.

Stephanie Moore (Analyst)

Thank you. Very clear. And then to my follow-up, and this is a follow-up to a prior question on just the E and E deal that’s closed. As you think about just the opportunity to apply the UL Solutions operating model across the lab and the company, where should we think about the biggest opportunities? Is this more of a cost and margin improvement story or more of a revenue opportunity story in your mind?

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah, I, you know, I think it’s both. But, you know, the exciting opportunity about this business is, one, it does expand our geographic footprint into areas where we didn’t have as many, you know, lab or engineering capabilities. So you look at the additions in Europe and even the additions in Asia, particularly Korea, it’s really helpful. E and E is aligned with many of the megatrends that have been propelling our growth, you know, and particularly as you look at our, you know, consumer technology and connected technologies business.

And so having the opportunity to cross-sell a more fulsome set of services to those existing E and E customers is a great growth opportunity for us. But of course, we’re going to run this smartly. We’re going to apply the things that they do well—speed to market, a really great customer focus on a new group of customers—and the things that we do well on the ways in which we run our labs globally and expect margin expansion as well.

Stephanie Moore (Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Jenny. Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate it.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Thank you.

OPERATOR

The next question is from Seth Weber from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Seth Weber (Analyst)

Hey, guys. Good morning. I guess first, just a clarification. The transaction costs for the fourth quarter that you’ve called out, the 18 to 21 million, is that consistent with what was in the prior 27% EBITDA margin guide, or is that higher relative to where you thought it was, you know, where I would say as we progressed as of last quarter? Yeah.

Ryan Robinson (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you for the question, Seth. As we’ve progressed in the year, I think our expectations about transaction and integration costs and our pace have increased a bit. So we think we have a good handle on the work that needs to be done and the timeline to do it. But we just closed the transaction less than roughly a month ago, and so we’re in early innings, but overall we’re progressing well.

Seth Weber (Analyst)

Okay. I’m just trying to understand if so margins would have been a little bit higher. You know, your guide would have been a little bit stronger on the margin side, but you had some extra costs that you feel like you’re seeing here through the fourth quarter. Is that the right way to think about it?

Ryan Robinson (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that our Q4 integration costs are a bit higher than what we would have thought earlier in the year before the transaction. And Seth, we tried to make this easy to understand the puts and takes on it. And so there is slide 23 in the earnings presentation. And one of the things that you’ll see on that slide in Q4 is that we even still have a range of, you know, what we’re predicting on those transaction and integration costs.

Seth Weber (Analyst)

Right. Okay, thank you. And then just on the software business, you know, what’s the right margin to think about for that business? I mean, sales were kind of flat here sequentially, but margins ticked down. Just trying to understand how we should be thinking about that business kind of holistically. Thank you.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah, indeed. You know, it was a disappointing margin quarter, and it’s reflective of a lot of puts and takes from the effect of the EHS divestiture earlier this year. The remaining portfolio is stronger than is reflected in this quarter results. This quarter, we reported 4.7% organic revenue growth. And, you know, the underlying, you know, real strength in some of the software that we have there is better than that. So that said, we expect some margin improvement in the fourth quarter, and we expect a reversion toward a more normal growth and EBITDA range as we were seeing prior to the EHS divestiture as we look beyond the fourth quarter.

Seth Weber (Analyst)

Got it. Okay. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Thank you, Seth.

OPERATOR

The next question is from Arthur Truslove from Citi. Please go ahead.

Arthur Truslove (Analyst at Citi)

Good afternoon. Congratulations on strong quarter. A couple of questions for me. I was just wondering, would it be possible to sort of drill down a little bit as to what’s driven the acceleration of organic growth in the industrial division? You know, I appreciate it has accelerated, and you’ve mentioned kind of what’s been strong, but are you able to just explain kind of why it’s accelerated? Second question. Are you able to talk a little bit about the visibility for revenue of the business as you look out over time? So maybe, you know, can you give an idea roughly of how much revenue can you see 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, maybe even 24 months out?

And then final question, relative to when you IPO, how well developed do you think your pricing system is, and how far do you think you are through your efficiency sort of program, and how much do you think you’ve kind of got to go of those processes, if that makes sense. Thank you.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Thanks, Arthur. And we’ll try to take those one at a time. And I’ll start with the acceleration of organic growth in industrial, which indeed, as I’ve said, industrial is our primary growth and margin driver. And the 8.4% organic revenue growth, which includes the inclusion of Advisory that we moved in earlier this year, and Advisory was relatively flat. So again, that underlying core industrial growth is even stronger, and it is being driven by all of the megatrends—this is the core of our core of our business.

We talked about the certification testing growth. Now certification testing occurs in both industrial and consumer, but in industrial we’re seeing it in power and automation, wiring, cable and fire safety. And we’re seeing that in the United States and in Greater China. So, you know, and then leading into your second question, kind of visibility and revenue, one of the interesting distinctions between certification testing and non-certification testing is certification testing tends to have longer duration. And so as we see those orders, we do have greater visibility into how that revenue hits over time, where non-certification testing can frequently, you know, in the retail space it can be in and out in three days.

So, you know, as we look at orders and we look at orders in things like, you know, our key businesses that are driven by the energy transition and the electrification of everything and also shifts in materials, we’re seeing those orders, you know, growing faster than revenue. And so that supports our continued demand business. Ryan, do you want to talk about, you know, just the final question on relative to the IPO, how we’re doing on pricing and how we’re doing on margin expansion?

Ryan Robinson (Chief Financial Officer)

Sure. And then I would just add to your answer. A third of our revenue is ongoing certification services, which is a contractually recurring revenue stream, provides a lot of visibility. And the comments that Jenny made about testing were spot on. In regard to pricing, we continue to develop our capabilities. We’ve developed the infrastructure and the technical capabilities and processes for customer relationship management for our configure price quote and we have made improvements in centralized processes and governance around pricing.

I would say there is still some progress to go in some of our businesses to advance value-based pricing, but we made good progress in the journey thus far and it’s contributed to the revenue growth and the margins. And then in regard to the efficiency program that we announced in the third quarter of last year, we’ve made good progress. We are on track for the benefits that we had described at that time. We have achieved the majority of the headcount changes that we described. We had said that we expect that to be complete by the end of the first quarter of 2027. We feel we’re on point for that. But already we’ve achieved the majority of the benefits that we’ve anticipated.

OPERATOR

The next question is from Shlomo Rosenbaum from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Shlomo Rosenbaum (Analyst)

Hi, thank you very much for taking my questions. I want to go back to a question was touched on earlier in terms about how broad-based industrials organic growth is. I know there’s overlap. When you talk about data center demand, there’s a lot of things that go into that. The wiring goes into that, energy goes into that, different other construction materials. Are you able to kind of segment out how much of the growth is really being ultimately driven by the data center demand versus demand elsewhere in the economy?

Or, you know, is there some way to view that for us to see, you know, what is actually, you know, the key growth drivers that are kind of shining through with this strong growth?

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah, it’s an important question and it’s important to remember that as our customers, you know, those very large industrial manufacturers that we’ve worked with for decades as they’re responding to the demand. And I’m going to just again start with the megatrends of the energy transition and electrification of everything that is showing up in data centers, but it’s also showing up in their other markets because large-scale industrial manufacturers are focused on an energy crunch and are looking for equipment to run in their manufacturing plants that would be more energy efficient.

And so a lot of the innovation that’s out there, as you see in a lot of technology trends, may be initially driven by the ideas that are being pushed by the leaders in the data center architecture, infrastructure, ecosystem. But then those ideas, those concepts, those innovations end up being applied for product use in other environments. And so that’s why for us, it’s more important to focus on what is the effect of these megatrends on our customers’ innovation cycles. And we just continue to see tremendous propellants, great tailwinds from the electrification, the energy transition, the need for more sustainability, and the effect of digitalization across all of those new product development life cycles.

Shlomo Rosenbaum (Analyst)

Okay, thank you. And then this is for Ryan, just trying to understand the margin improvement in industrial and consumer. Is there a way to segment at least roughly operating leverage versus productivity versus portfolio changes for industrial, industrial and consumer? Is there a way to think about it like 2/3 coming from one versus the other in order for us to understand how much is just driving the top line versus how much is actively managing the costs and where the costs are coming from?

Ryan Robinson (Chief Financial Officer)

Yes. And we’re pleased with the margin expansion in both of those segments. I would say broadly, we talk about productivity improvements and better utilization of our team members in our locations. So when we grow revenue faster than, like, our employee compensation costs, that is a measure of employee productivity. Operating leverage can be better utilizing our other costs, our locations, our rent, our IT, our other costs, and we break out both of those, employee compensation as well as services, materials and depreciation and amortization in our sector in our reporting.

So we’re pleased with the progress and underlying 200 basis points of margin expansion year over year. And we hope the incremental information we provided is helpful to all of our investors. Thank you.

OPERATOR

The next question is from George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

George Tong (Analyst)

Hi. Thanks. Good morning. And apologies for the technical difficulties earlier. Industrial organic growth was around 9% excluding advisory, compared to 8.4% including advisory. Can you talk a little bit more about performance within advisory and whether the slower growth reflected project timing, softer demand or any other factors? And how are you thinking about advisory growth heading into 2027?

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah, you know, advisory is important because it helps us provide a fulsome set of solutions for many of our customers, in particular in the renewable energy space and in the built environment. In the commercial real estate, there have been headwinds in both of those industries and advisory has had challenges in particular in the United States, in both of those industries. Outside of that, in particular, when you look at, you know, like Germany or Europe, advisory is stronger and seeing some, you know, interesting projects and opportunities for growth.

So it’s a small business, it’s got a lot of puts and takes, timings of projects can affect growth rates that are reported. But indeed right now there continues to be some, you know, some headwinds both from renewable energy here in the United States and the commercial real estate effect here in the United States.

George Tong (Analyst)

Got it. That’s helpful. And then you mentioned certification testing is the best indicator of data center activity. As you look across power distribution, power conversion, liquid cooling, what determines whether the current demand becomes a multi-year testing and certification opportunity versus a concentrated initial certification cycle?

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Yeah, I think the way to think about it is, you know, I always say our certification testing business to some degree is a function of the amount of innovation and R&D that our customers are investing. And so, again, it’s the, you know, the megatrends that they’re really focused on. So, you know, and in the data center space, what’s really interesting is I would say equipment in a data center tends to last a few years, you know, let’s call it three years.

And then they’re hot swapping different pieces out. And that can require, you know, changes to the cooling system, changes to the underlying, you know, servers and chipsets, the thermodynamics that are around it and the amount of power that’s needed. I think our customers are looking at data centers in particular, but all of these megatrends, insofar as it’s an evolution. You’ve got version one of a product and then you know that somebody’s going to leapfrog you in that, and so you’re going to have version two and version three.

The beauty of it being requiring certification testing is then that becomes the fuel for continued ongoing certification services and growth in that recurring revenue stream for us as well.

George Tong (Analyst)

Very helpful. Thank you.

OPERATOR

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Jenny Scanlon for closing comments.

Jennifer Scanlon (President & CEO)

Thank you everyone for joining us today and as always, we appreciate your support and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.

OPERATOR

This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.