Columbus McKinnon (CMCO) Telefonkonferenz zum 2. Quartal des Geschäftsjahres 2027: Prognose angehoben

Wichtige Erkenntnisse

• Der Nettoumsatz im 2. Quartal des Geschäftsjahres 2027 erreichte 539,3 Millionen US-Dollar, was einem Anstieg von 107 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr entspricht. Der Pro-forma-Umsatz stieg um etwa 6,6 %, davon entfielen rund vier Prozentpunkte auf Preiseffekte und drei Punkte auf das Volumen, was teilweise durch nachteilige Währungseffekte kompensiert wurde.
• Der Auftragseingang lag bei 562,6 Millionen US-Dollar, ein Plus von 122 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr und etwa 13 % auf Pro-forma-Basis. Der Auftragsbestand stieg im Vergleich zum Vorquartal um 2 % auf 556,2 Millionen US-Dollar, bei einem Book-to-Bill-Verhältnis von 1,0x.
• Das bereinigte EBITDA stieg um 177 % auf 111,2 Millionen US-Dollar. Die bereinigte EBITDA-Marge erweiterte sich um 520 Basispunkte auf 20,6 %, unterstützt durch den positiven Ergebnisbeitrag von Kito Crosby, Kostenkontrollen und Synergierealisierung.
• Columbus McKinnon hob seinen Ausblick für das Geschäftsjahr 2027 auf einen Nettoumsatz von 2,13 bis 2,17 Milliarden US-Dollar, ein bereinigtes EBITDA von 425 bis 440 Millionen US-Dollar und ein bereinigtes Ergebnis je Aktie von 2,00 bis 2,15 US-Dollar an.
• Das Management rechnet damit, sein Ziel bei den Nettokostensynergien zu erreichen oder zu übertreffen. Das Cross-Selling zwischen den Vertriebskanälen von Legacy CMCO und Kito Crosby eröffnet zudem erste Umsatzsynergiepotenziale, insbesondere in Amerika.
• Der freie Cashflow belief sich im ersten Halbjahr auf 4,6 Millionen US-Dollar. Das Management geht davon aus, dass die Cash-Generierung schwerpunktmäßig in der zweiten Jahreshälfte erfolgen wird, da Forderungen und Vorräte in liquide Mittel umgewandelt werden.

Wichtige Finanzdaten

Geschäfts- und operative Entwicklung

Die Nachfrage war in den Regionen Amerika, EMEA und APAC breit gefächert. Der Umsatz von Legacy CMCO wuchs im mittleren einstelligen Prozentbereich, während der Umsatz von Legacy Kito Crosby im hohen einstelligen Prozentbereich zulegte.

Der projektbezogene Umsatz stieg auf konsolidierter Pro-forma-Basis im zweistelligen Prozentbereich, während das kurzzyklische Geschäft im mittleren einstelligen Bereich zulegte. Das Management nannte die Märkte Energie, Verteidigung, Mobilität, E-Commerce und allgemeine Industrie als wesentliche Nachfragetreiber. Der Bau von Rechenzentren stützte zudem die direkte Nachfrage nach Hebe- und Sicherungstechnik sowie die vorgelagerte Ausrüstungsproduktion.

Die Region Amerika entwickelte sich sowohl im kurzzyklischen als auch im Projektgeschäft weiterhin stark. Nach Angaben des Managements zog die Nachfrage nach Hebezeugen in den USA im Laufe des Quartals an. Umsatzsynergie-Initiativen und das erweiterte Gesamtportfolio unterstützen Cross-Selling- und Marktanteilschancen, die sich zunächst schwerpunktmäßig auf Amerika konzentrieren.

APAC verzeichnete das stärkste Umsatzwachstum, was auf Preisanpassungen, das breitere Portfolio und die beschleunigte Auslieferung eines margenstarken Projekts im Umfang von rund 5 Millionen US-Dollar zurückzuführen ist. Der Auftragseingang ging auf Pro-forma-Basis moderat zurück, nachdem vor einer Preiserhöhung im Juli Aufträge in das 1. Quartal vorgezogen worden waren.

EMEA erzielte ein leicht positives Pro-forma-Umsatzwachstum und übertraf damit die ursprünglichen Erwartungen des Managements für das Quartal. Die Haupttreiber waren die Nachfrage aus den Bereichen Energie, allgemeine Industrie und Verteidigung. Der Auftragseingang enthielt ein Energieprojekt in Saudi-Arabien mit einem Volumen von rund 23 Millionen US-Dollar, das voraussichtlich größtenteils im Geschäftsjahr 2028 umsatzwirksam wird. Ohne dieses Projekt stieg der Auftragseingang in EMEA im hohen einstelligen Prozentbereich.

Preiseffekte trugen etwa vier Prozentpunkte zum Pro-forma-Umsatzwachstum bei. Das Management erklärte, dass das Preis-Kosten-Verhältnis trotz der Inflation bei Material und Diesel günstig blieb, und geht davon aus, dass dieses Verhältnis auch in der zweiten Jahreshälfte günstig bleiben wird.

Prognose des Managements

Columbus McKinnon hat seinen Ausblick für das Geschäftsjahr 2027 wie folgt angehoben:

Das Management rechnet in der zweiten Jahreshälfte mit einer bereinigten EBITDA-Marge auf einem ähnlichen Niveau wie im ersten Halbjahr (ca. 19,7 %), bereinigt um den Nettonutzen der IEEPA-Zollerstattungen im 1. Quartal. Die Quartalsmargen können je nach Geschäftsmix schwanken.

Das Unternehmen erwartet, dass sich der freie Cashflow in der zweiten Jahreshälfte verbessern wird, da sich die Investitionen in das Working Capital umkehren. Das Management zeigt sich weiterhin zuversichtlich, bis zum Ende des Geschäftsjahres 2028 einen Verschuldungsgrad (Leverage) von etwa 4x zu erreichen, unterstützt durch Kern-EBITDA-Wachstum, Synergie-Realisierung und Schuldenabbau. Die Leverage-Berechnungen beinhalten den Run-Rate-Vorteil aus Synergien in Höhe von 70 Millionen US-Dollar.

Risiken und Beobachtungspunkte

• Die Rahmenbedingungen in EMEA bleiben schwächer als in Amerika und APAC, was mit den vom Management angeführten Industrieindikatoren übereinstimmt.
• Die Inflation bei Material und Diesel hält an, wenngleich das Management davon ausgeht, dass das Preis-Kosten-Verhältnis in der zweiten Jahreshälfte durch Preisanpassungen günstig bleibt.
• Nachteilige Währungsumrechnungseffekte verringerten das Pro-forma-Umsatzwachstum.
• Die Lieferrouten im Nahen Osten bleiben anspruchsvoll und weniger effizient, was die Lieferzeiten verlängern könnte.
• Im ersten Halbjahr führte das Working Capital aufgrund höherer Umsätze und Vorratsanforderungen zu einem Mittelabfluss. Die erwartete Cashflow-Verbesserung in der zweiten Jahreshälfte hängt teilweise von der Umwandlung von Forderungen und Vorräten in liquide Mittel ab.
• Der Zinsaufwand bleibt nach der Kito-Crosby-Transaktion erheblich. Die langfristigen Verbindlichkeiten umfassen einen Term Loan B in Höhe von 1,4 Milliarden US-Dollar und vorrangig besicherte Anleihen über 900 Millionen US-Dollar.

Wichtigste Punkte aus der Analysten-Fragerunde

Nachhaltigkeit der Marge: Das Management erklärte, dass Q2 keine wesentlichen IEEPA-Zollerstattungen oder sonstige Großposten enthielt, die die Margen erheblich verzerrt hätten. Starke Umsätze im September, operative Hebelwirkung und die Realisierung von Synergien trieben die bereinigte EBITDA-Marge auf 20,6 %.

Umsatzsynergien: Das Unternehmen vertreibt Produkte von Legacy CMCO über die Vertriebskanäle von Kito Crosby und Kito-Crosby-Produkte über die Kanäle von Legacy CMCO. Zu den Initiativen gehören Vertriebsschulungen, Kanalentwicklung und die regionale Optimierung der Lieferkette. Potenzielle Umsatzsynergien sind im Nettokostensynergieziel des Unternehmens nicht enthalten.

Cashflow und Entschuldung: Das Management erwartet, dass der freie Cashflow stark auf die zweite Jahreshälfte konzentriert sein wird. Längerfristig sieht es Chancen, den Vorratsumschlag, die Außenstandsdauer der Forderungen (DSO) und die Zahlungsziele der Verbindlichkeiten (DPO) zu verbessern. Der Vorratsumschlag liegt derzeit bei etwa 2,5x; laut Management würde eine Annäherung an 3x einen erheblichen Cashflow-Vorteil bringen.

Nachfrageannahmen: Das Management verlässt sich nicht auf wesentlich stärkere Marktbedingungen, um seinen Kurs für die Geschäftsjahre 2028 und 2029 zu stützen. Die Planungen gehen davon aus, dass die Aktivität im Wesentlichen auf dem aktuellen Niveau bleibt, ergänzt durch vertriebliche Initiativen, Synergien und operative Verbesserungen.

Vollständiges Transkript der Ergebnis-Telefonkonferenz

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz

Ausführungen des Managements

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Columbus McKinnon's Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Anas, and I'll be your conference operator today. As a reminder, this call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Alexandre Eldredge with Columbus McKinnon Investor Relations.

Alexandre Eldredge

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the CMCO Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Call. Joining me on the call this morning are President and Chief Executive Officer, David Wilson; and Chief Financial Officer, John Linker.

On today's call, we will be referencing our earnings press release and presentation, which are available on our Investor Relations website, investors.cmco.com.

Before David and John walk you through our operating and financial performance for the quarter, I would like to remind you that during this call, we may make forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 in regard to our current plans, beliefs, and expectations.

These statements are not guarantees for future performance and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and other factors that can cause actual results and events to differ materially from the results and events contemplated by these forward-looking statements.

I'd also like to remind you that management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations for these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures on the company's Investor Relations website and in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Please see our earnings release and our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more information.

Also on today's call, we will make reference to pro forma metrics, which adjust for both the Kito Crosby acquisition and the divestiture of the Legacy Columbus McKinnon U.S. power chain hoist and chain operations as if each transaction had been completed prior to the beginning of the prior year period to improve the comparability of results across different periods.

Today's prepared remarks will be followed by a question-and-answer session. We respectfully ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

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

David Wilson

Thank you, Alexandre, and good morning, everyone. In Q2, we continued building on our strong start to fiscal 2027, advancing progress with the integration of Kito Crosby and unlocking synergies while driving organic revenue growth and delivering margin improvement.

I am pleased with the progress we are making as our people, processes, and systems are coming together to enhance value and execute day in and day out for our customers through our scaled and better positioned business and product portfolio.

Turning to the quarter's results. Orders exceeded $560 million for the second consecutive quarter, growing 13% on a pro forma basis, demonstrating the market's resilient demand for our intelligent motion solutions and providing visibility into future sales growth.

In the period, pro forma sales grew 7% with growth across all geographies and at both Legacy CMCO and Kito Crosby. This robust revenue growth is enabled by our scaled platform, enhanced customer value proposition, and business initiatives, which are unlocking market share gains in targeted growth areas. This growth is also supported by ongoing commercial initiatives and early revenue synergy wins.

The team continues to make disciplined progress advancing our strategic priorities of operational excellence, commercial effectiveness, and customer experience, strengthening our foundation for sustainable growth.

Our broad-based demand strength is benefiting from diversified end market exposure with continued growth in targeted verticals, including energy, defense, mobility, e-commerce, and general industrial. We are also experiencing tailwinds from data center build-outs, which drive direct demand for lifting securement hardware and permanently installed lifting solutions while also driving meaningful upstream demand for the production of data center-related equipment that also requires our solutions.

Volumes are building in the Americas and Asia Pacific, while EMEA has been a bit softer, consistent with what we're seeing in PMI and industrial production data. Inflationary pressures have been persistent, but our supply chain remains resilient, and we are not experiencing any noteworthy changes in our sourcing of raw materials and components.

We continue to lean on our pricing discipline to strategically realize price to offset inflation, giving us confidence in our ability to manage price/cost headwinds. Additionally, we see opportunities to improve our cost position and drive further improvements in core productivity.

Adjusted EBITDA was $111 million in the quarter and increased 177% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.6%. These results were stronger than anticipated with sustained strength in the Americas and better-than-expected demand in both Asia and EMEA. Demand resilience was complemented by factors that are within our control and areas where we continue to improve, including strong operational execution, a focus on improving customer experience, and commercial initiatives that are leading to expanding market share.

And since closing the Kito Crosby acquisition, the feedback we are receiving from our customers has been quite positive.

I am pleased with the results we have delivered in the first half of the year, and I am proud of how our teams are coming together across the combined business. This early-stage post-acquisition success gives you a glimpse of the power we are unlocking within CMCO and strengthens our foundation for sustainable, profitable growth in the years ahead.

Our confidence in our shareholder value creation potential continues to grow as we drive organic growth, expand margins, deliver increasing free cash flow, and delever the balance sheet.

On the integration front, we continue to make meaningful progress with agile execution and strong collaboration across the combined organization. Our teams have come together as one to support a common mission of providing innovative intelligent motion solutions to our customers with unmatched safety, quality, and reliability. While we just completed our second full quarter as a combined organization, we are moving swiftly to deliver meaningful synergies and our initial integration priorities are firmly underway.

We expect to meet or exceed our targeted net cost synergies. And increasingly, we are sharpening our focus on the longer-term enablers and initiatives that will unlock the full potential of the combined business.

We are also advancing revenue synergy opportunities that we expect will be meaningful over time. While these items will take time to develop as we align sales force training, channel partnerships, and supply chain optimization, we are seeing early traction from both expanding market share and leveraging our broadened product portfolio across our combined channel reach with key customers.

Overall, we are advancing integration plans and building momentum to deliver sustained organic growth, capture synergies, expand profitability, generate cash, and reduce debt, unlocking substantial long-term value for all stakeholders.

Thanks to the good work our more than 7,000 global team members are doing on behalf of our global business, we are increasing our full year guidance across net sales, Adjusted EBITDA, and Adjusted EPS. John will walk you through those details and provide more context regarding our financial performance shortly.

Before handing the call over to John, I'd like to share an example of how our team is engaging outside of their normal work responsibilities to advance Columbus McKinnon's vision of moving the world forward for a safer, more productive tomorrow.

Last month, 10 of our global CMCO teammates traveled to Rwanda's Nyaruguru district where they work with FICA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to safe, reliable rural transport access to support the construction of a suspended trail bridge. This bridge will now provide for safer year-round access to health care, schools, and economic opportunities for more than 6,700 people in nearby communities.

We are proud that we were able to partner with FICA to support this construction initiative through both our on-site employee volunteer team and with an assortment of hoists and lifting hardware that enabled the construction of the new suspension bridge.

On behalf of our entire organization, I'd like to extend an enormous thank you to all involved in this meaningful initiative.

With that, I'll turn the call over to John to walk us through our second quarter results.

John Linker

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Through my first 4 months with the organization, I visited multiple facilities, engaged with our teams worldwide, and met many of our equity and debt holders and research analysts.

It is clear to me that CMCO is well positioned to capitalize on megatrends driving demand, deliver organic growth through commercial initiatives, and improve margins through synergy realization and operational improvements. We expect this to lead to outsized free cash flow generation and debt reduction, which will in turn unlock shareholder value.

Our second quarter results represent just the second full quarter since closing the combination with Kito Crosby. These results show early traction on our strategic priorities with stronger-than-expected Q2 results as we capitalized on broad-based demand for our expanded product portfolio of intelligent motion solutions and reflected disciplined operational and commercial execution. Orders of $562.6 million increased $308.9 million or 122% from the prior year, largely driven by the benefit of the Kito Crosby acquisition.

Normalizing for the acquisition and the divestiture, pro forma orders growth was approximately 13%, with continued strength in the Americas and a significant contribution from EMEA, including an approximately $23 million order tied to an energy customer in Saudi Arabia. Excluding this order, the majority of which we expect to convert to revenue in FY '28, EMEA orders were up high single digits.

In APAC, our forward-looking pipeline remains healthy, but second quarter orders declined moderately on a pro forma basis following the pull forward of orders in Q1 linked to their July price increase.

Backlog of $556.2 million increased 2% sequentially, reflecting strong order intake and resulting in a 1.0x book-to-bill in the quarter. Current quarter backlog, which typically represents approximately half of the following quarter's revenue, was $264.9 million at quarter end. We delivered net sales of $539.3 million, which increased $278.2 million or 107% from the prior year, driven by the acquisition of Kito Crosby, volume, and pricing, partially offset by the divestiture and unfavorable currency translation.

Sales growth was broad-based and positive across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, reflecting mid-single-digit growth in the Legacy CMCO portfolio and high single-digit growth in the legacy Kito Crosby portfolio.

Normalizing for both the acquisition and divestiture, pro forma sales growth was approximately 6.6%, which we estimate was comprised of approximately 4 points of price and 3 points of volume, partially offset by unfavorable foreign exchange.

Sales growth was strongest in APAC, reflecting the impact of recent pricing, broadened product portfolio, and the accelerated timing of a project delivery. The Americas continues to show strength in both short-cycle and project businesses with sales growth through pricing and execution against our commercial initiatives of expanding the reach of our newly combined product portfolio.

Importantly, EMEA delivered modestly positive revenue growth on a pro forma basis, which was an improvement as compared to our expectations going into Q2 as industrial activity showed signs of returning led by investments in infrastructure, energy, and defense.

Overall, demand driving Q2 sales was both broad-based and resilient. On a consolidated pro forma basis, project-related sales increased double digits and short-cycle sales increased mid-single digits with benefits from both pricing and volume growth from a favorable demand environment.

Gross profit of $187.9 million increased $97.7 million or 108% versus the prior year on a GAAP basis, reflecting the Kito Crosby acquisition, pricing, and volume, partially offset by the impact of the divestiture and material cost and diesel inflation in COGS.

On a GAAP basis, our gross margin was 34.8%, while on an adjusted basis, our gross margin was 36.5%, an improvement of 120 basis points year-over-year, primarily due to favorable price versus cost and the accretion of the Kito Crosby acquisition. Adjusted gross margins also improved sequentially when normalizing Q1 to exclude the net benefit of IEEPA tariff refunds.

[ RSG&A ] expenses increased $51.9 million to $122.2 million on a GAAP basis due to the addition of Kito Crosby, integration costs, and increased incentive compensation expense, partially offset by cost saving synergies. Adjusted RSG&A, which excludes acquisition integration costs and other nonrecurring expenses, increased by $51.9 million to $111.1 million. This is where we are seeing the majority of scale benefits from the acquisition and cost synergy realization.

Adjusted EBITDA of $111.2 million increased $71.0 million or 177% with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.6%. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 520 basis points year-over-year, reflecting accretion from the Kito Crosby acquisition, prudent cost management, and synergy realization. When normalizing for the impact of the Kito Crosby acquisition and divestiture in the prior period, Q2 Adjusted EBITDA grew approximately 14% and Adjusted EBITDA margins expanded approximately 130 basis points on a pro forma basis.

We continue to believe that based on actions taken thus far, we are well positioned to meet or exceed our net cost synergy target.

Net loss attributable to the company in the quarter was $25.5 million or $0.76 per share on a GAAP basis. Adjusted net income was $31.1 million or $0.61 a share, down $0.01 versus the prior year, primarily driven by operating profit increases, offset by higher interest expense and a higher share count due to the inclusion of the common shares issuable upon the conversion of the preferred shares.

Year-to-date, we delivered $4.6 million of free cash flow, an improvement from the prior year, reflecting our higher operating profits, partially offset by higher cash interest, higher cash taxes, and a higher use of working capital to support strong year-to-date sales growth. We expect this working capital investment to convert to improved cash generation in the second half of this fiscal year.

In the quarter, we opportunistically repriced our senior credit facilities, reducing the effective interest rate on both our Term Loan B and revolving credit facility, lowering the applicable margin spread on both by 50 basis points. On an annualized basis, we expect this to result in savings of more than $7 million.

As a reminder, our long-term debt structure is comprised of a $1.4 billion Term Loan B and $900 million of senior secured notes. The Term Loan B after the repricing bears interest at SOFR plus 300 basis points. We have hedges in place on approximately $1 billion of this $1.4 billion fixing SOFR at approximately 3.7% with laddered maturities through fiscal 2031.

The Term Loan B has no prepayment penalty for optional redemptions. The senior secured notes bear interest at 7.125% payable semiannually. This debt structure, along with our recent repricing, positions us well to navigate the current environment of higher interest rates.

Our liquidity position remains healthy at $532 million, consisting of $110.9 million of cash and cash equivalents and $421.1 million of availability on our revolving credit facility.

Given our strong Q2 results and increasing confidence in the year, we are raising our outlook for fiscal 2027. This updated full year outlook reflects strong orders and financial performance in the first half and increased confidence and traction on our strategic priorities.

The revised outlook takes into account the timing of our current backlog, increased interest rates, and updated foreign exchange rates. Our guidance also incorporates confidence that in the second half of the fiscal year, we will sustain the strong Adjusted EBITDA margin performance from the first half when normalizing the first half to exclude the net benefits of the IEEPA tariff refunds from Q1.

Our increased outlook for fiscal 2027 is net sales of $2.13 billion to $2.17 billion, Adjusted EBITDA of $425 million to $440 million, and Adjusted EPS of $2 to $2.15 a share. Additionally, we have updated our guidance assumptions, which incorporates some adjustments to our acquisition purchase price accounting, which was finalized in the quarter.

These assumptions include interest expense of $185 million to $190 million, amortization expense of $130 million to $135 million, depreciation expense of $80 million to $85 million, capital expenditures of $45 million to $55 million, and normalized effective tax rate as used in the calculation of Adjusted EPS of 25%, and adjusted diluted shares outstanding of 52 million, reflecting our expectation to PIK the preferred share dividend in fiscal 2027.

Our first half results give me increasing confidence in not only our integration of the Kito Crosby acquisition and synergy realization, but also that our scaled enhanced customer value proposition is delivering value across intelligent motion solutions. We are making meaningful progress through our strategic priorities of operational execution, improved customer experience, and expanding market share.

I am confident that our strategy will unlock multiple avenues of organic growth, improve our margin profile, and generate significant free cash flow to fund debt reduction.

Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from James Kirby with JPMorgan Chase.

Fragen und Antworten

James Kirby

Can you hear me all right?

David Wilson

Yes, we can hear you John -- James. Sorry.

James Kirby

No problem. I appreciate the commentary there. Maybe just starting, I'm trying to square the commentary from last quarter that this quarter would be the low point in EBITDA and sales. And you cited some onetime benefits last quarter. Just wondering look ahead if the margin cadence you described last quarter is still intact? And maybe if you can parse through the buckets of onetime benefits versus kind of sustainable durable pricing power.

David Wilson

Yes, James, let me start and ask John to jump in. So when we entered the quarter, we had a performance in Q1 that included the benefits of onetime IEEPA tariff refunds that we knew came into that quarter. We also looked at the backlog that we had and how it phased and anticipated that Q2 would be a low point for the year, as you indicated and we were indicating at the time.

As the quarter progressed and demand patterns evolved, we had robust demand from a short-cycle perspective. We're able to execute ahead of plan in a number of key areas, and we actually had the accelerated delivery of some project activity, both in Asia and in Europe.

And so the combination of those opportunities projected or continued demand and our ability to execute was what resulted in us being able to overdeliver in the period. We also continue to make really good progress with our synergy initiatives and the integration of the 2 businesses, which was terrific.

And the combination of those factors resulted in us delivering a performance that was outsized related to expectations that we previously talked about. As you know, we raised price in Q1, our Q1, in addition to some price increases that went into effect in the prior fiscal year that had carryover benefits.

We're starting to see the benefits of those come through as well. And as John indicated in the quarter, we believe that pricing was about 4% of the growth and volume was about 3% of the growth.

I'll pause there and ask John to continue if there's something you wanted to add.

John Linker

Yes. Thanks, David. I would say there wasn't anything to call out of any magnitude in Q2 that sort of significantly skewed margins. We didn't have any material IEEPA tariff refunds in Q2 like we did in Q1.

So I think it's just, we overperformed as the quarter progressed. We had a very strong September of sales throughput and that has some nice operating leverage on it, and that allowed a nice margin for us in the quarter, and we're really pleased with how that panned out.

And so as I tried to indicate in the prepared remarks, if you just take, to simplify things, if you take the first half of the year, pull out the net benefit of IEEPA tariff refunds, you're at sort of a little high 19.7% EBITDA margin, something in that ballpark. And if you look at our implied second half of the year and our outlook that we just gave, we're implying that the second half is going to look similar to that.

And so I think we're trying to signal that we're sustaining that strong margin performance, and there'll be quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in where margins land depending on the mix, but we're really pleased with sort of how things are coming together from a margin and synergy perspective.

David Wilson

Yes. And James, you recall on a pro forma basis, we ended last year at 18.5% pro forma EBITDA margins. And so this is a nice progression from that point.

James Kirby

Right. That sounds great. Maybe, David, second question. You talked about the revenue synergies in the prepared remarks. I know probably not ready to give or provide a flavor of kind of the size of opportunity there. But just on the market share you're seeing or potential market share gains, maybe just any more color you can share there in terms of region or product that you're seeing potential for market share for maybe the top line synergies you talked about?

David Wilson

Yes. I mean I think we're seeing it across the organization on a global basis. We're seeing opportunities to sell our products that are Legacy CMCO products into the Kito Crosby channels. We're seeing the same opportunities to sell Kito Crosby products into the Legacy CMCO channels.

Our combined organization presents a more valuable combined offering to the market, which is creating opportunities for us to continue to grow and position ourselves well with customers.

As I said in the prepared remarks, the feedback that we've been receiving from our customers post acquisition and the way that we've been responding both with our actions in the business as well as in the way that we've been responsive to customer needs has received really favorable responses from customers.

And we believe that the combined portfolio, the extended reach, and our focus on improved execution, improving on-time delivery, and customer experience is leading to the opportunity for us to grow the business and gain some share.

And so we're seeing opportunities that we've realized in all geographies. Perhaps if it were weighted slightly, it might be more weighted towards the Americas and the initial phases of this, just simply given our concentration and more fulsome position in that market.

Operator

Our next question will be from Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson.

Matt Summerville

Can you talk a little bit about how we should expect free cash flow to cadence out for the balance of the year? You mentioned some potential tailwinds from working capital.

And then can you maybe also to the last question, talk about how much revenue and EBITDA may have ultimately been pulled forward, if that's the right way to think about that project acceleration you mentioned in Asia and Europe?

John Linker

Thanks, Matt. Yes. So from a cash flow standpoint, if you think about sort of year-to-date, some of the bigger buckets that we've had, we've got $90 million of cash interest expense year-to-date, $26 million of cash taxes year-to-date. We've called out the $24 million of cash deal costs year-to-date and then CapEx was sort of $16 million.

I think we've given guidance on sort of most of those elements for the full year. So the one outlier in that is that our working capital has definitely been a use of cash year-to-date.

Some of that is just our sales, on a pro forma basis, our sales are up about 8%. If you kind of look at the blend of Q1 and Q2. Ballpark, that's $80 million of sort of pro forma sales increase. And typically, our working capital runs about 30% of sales. So we've got some use of cash there of 30% of that $80 million of sales increase that is tied up on the balance sheet right now.

So in summary, we would expect the second half of the year certainly to see some unlock on that working capital of converting the AR and particularly the inventory into cash flow in the back half of the year and that use of cash would flip back to at least neutral, if not positive for the full year is kind of how we're thinking about cash flow generation.

So we certainly, the cash flow generation is significantly weighted in the second half.

I'll pause there in case, or I can go to your second question on sort of the second quarter.

Matt Summerville

Yes, the second quarter is great.

John Linker

Yes. On the second quarter, I wouldn't, we did call out 1 project in APAC. It was around $5 million that did get pulled forward based off of sort of customer needs, and that was a very high-margin project. And so it was enough to sort of skew our original outcome a bit in terms of some of the drivers from our original talking points for Q2.

Outside of that, I wouldn't cite any significant sort of pull-in type of activity that took place from a sales standpoint in Q2. It's just sort of normal course.

But just overall, we saw strong orders and that translated into strong sales in the quarter. And certainly, as I indicated, it got better as the quarter progressed, and we exited the quarter with just a really nice September.

Our lifting hardware business in the U.S. was particularly strong, which was in that short cycle, which we have less visibility to when we give comments at the beginning of the quarter, and that business really progressed well as the quarter progressed into Q2.

Matt Summerville

And then just as a quick follow-up, can you be a little bit more specific around where you were from a price/cost spread standpoint in Q2 and how we should be thinking about that spread in Q3 and Q4?

John Linker

So we called out, on a pro forma basis, we called out the 4 points of price for the combined business. We're not in a position to sort of quantify the specifics of the price cost, but it was favorable. We did see inflation in both material costs as well as diesel. So it's not like all that price is dropping to the bottom line.

But as of right now, just given where we stand with sort of integration and analytics, I'm not in a position to sort of quantify the exact price/cost benefit in this context. But as we go through the back half of the year, we expect that price/cost relationship to remain favorable.

We're always going to be on our front foot, I should say, in terms of looking at other areas of inflation that might be of concern so that we can make further adjustments to pricing as needed. But based off where we sit today, we feel like we'll be able to maintain that favorable price cost in the second half.

Operator

Our next question will be from Jon Tanwanteng with CJS.

Jonathan Tanwanteng

And congrats on a nice quarter. I was wondering if you could go a little bit more into the detail on the end demand and the drivers of outperformance, particularly in EMEA and Europe. As you mentioned data centers has been stronger in North America. There was an energy project in Asia that pulled forward. But what are the countries and the actual applications that are driving the stronger-than-expected demand that you're seeing in those regions?

David Wilson

Yes. Thanks, Jon. I would say that it's been largely energy, general industrial demand. And as we called out, we did see some increased demand in defense. And so from my perspective, those would be 3 primary drivers outside of normal economic activity that sort of showed up a little bit better for us in the period in Europe.

And we continue to execute in that region on a number of key initiatives from cross-selling to market reach. We did call out the very specific project in energy that we got with Saudi Arabia, as John highlighted. The markets for the mobility market are percolating.

There's a lot of really interesting activity in our rail business, notably that was in the funnel. But in the quarter, it would primarily be energy, general industrial, and I'd say defense outside of the normal level of activity.

Jonathan Tanwanteng

Got it. And then just to clarify on the last quarter, you had highlighted that there would be some maybe headwinds getting things into the Middle East. Has that bottleneck been cleared and you can ship there now? Or is that still in place?

David Wilson

Yes. I mean it remains challenging, but we've found ways to navigate. And so while routes to delivering into that market have evolved and the time to deliver might be a little bit longer, we're finding ways to execute and get our product to our customers, but it's not in the same and as efficient a way as we had previously been able to.

Jonathan Tanwanteng

Understood. And then just a quick one for John. It looks like you took down your CapEx by a little bit. Was something pushed out? Or did you get more efficient as something else happened? Just wondering what's going on there.

John Linker

No, nothing pushed out. We've just underspent sort of our original budget so far year-to-date with other focuses on integration activities. And so it's just a push out. There's no signaling there in terms of anything else just lowering our expectations slightly.

David Wilson

Yes, just timing.

Operator

Our last question will be from Steve Ferazani with Sidoti.

Steve Ferazani

Appreciate all the commentary this morning. Just wanted to touch on sort of longer term where you are on the leverage journey. It sounds like I wouldn't have expected you to make progress in the first 2 quarters. It sounds like you made a little bit. I think, John, you mentioned the expectation of a reversal of working capital, the typical second half.

Can you walk us through where you think you are? And can you provide us any thoughts on the cadence of how you're going to get there in the next 18 months?

John Linker

Thanks, Steve. We continue to have confidence in hitting the 4x by the end of FY '28. Based off of how we are reporting our leverage in these calls, we are taking into account the run rate of the synergies of the $70 million synergies in these ratio numbers that we're giving.

So that would imply in order for us to achieve the 4x by FY '28, we need to grow the core business EBITDA as well as generate free cash flow fairly significantly. And as I just indicated, we do expect some free cash flow generation in the second half of the year just from unlocking the temporary working capital investment from the sales growth.

And as we move into next year, I continue to see significant opportunities just to improve underlying working capital metrics themselves. So if you look at inventory turns and DSO and DPO, we absolutely see opportunity to move the needle on those metrics.

And today, we're at about 2.5x inventory turns. And if we could get back to 3x, for example, that would be a significant unlock in terms of free cash flow and a step change in generation. So I'd say that is a big area of focus over the next 18 months is that discipline around the balance sheet and cash flow and making sure that we see that come through and the whole organization is centered around making sure that we generate cash flow and delever.

And then back on the core business, while we're not yet giving outlook for FY '28 here, we'll certainly do that in the coming quarters. But in order for us to achieve the 4x, it's not just going to be a free cash flow story. There's got to be some core business EBITDA generation. And given how orders are trending this year, we've posted a couple of good quarters of orders.

Some of that's already feeding FY '28, and we have the visibility of the synergies that we're achieving that we know we're going to get the carryforward of in FY '28. That's what gives us confidence to sort of say that EBITDA is going to continue to improve into FY '28.

So the combination of those 2 things is what gives us the visibility to say that 4x by the end of FY '28 is still what's the focus area and confidence in what we hope to achieve.

Steve Ferazani

Now that we're a couple of quarters in, have you started to more fully explore what the opportunities to expand with Kito Crosby are in terms of cross-selling and other initiatives that could be a driver to growth and margin in '28, '29? And if I can just sort of add on how you think the macro needs to hold up to get to your targets by the end of next year?

David Wilson

Yes. We have, Steve, we've been working on that since pre-acquisition and have been really deep into it since we've closed the deal. There are a lot of cross-selling opportunities geography by geography. We're doing work on sales training and development. We're doing work on channel development.

We're looking at our supply chains and the availability of product and materials in regions. We have identified a list of initiatives basically region by region, which is how we're executing within the business today and are delivering on those in large part in the early innings. They build over time.

We haven't given a guidance number, but we do believe that there is upside potential from revenue synergies that have not been factored into our forward guide and in our synergy number overall that we've been communicating, which is more of a net cost synergy savings target.

So we're really pleased with the progress we're making, I feel good about the way the early developments have unfolded. And we're not counting on a lot different in terms of the market dynamics. We know that there have been positive drivers, megatrends that we do think will continue, but we're not counting on something that's materially different going into '28 and '29 to support the trajectory that we have, more of a sustained level of activity at current levels to support what we're trying to achieve in the out periods.

Operator

Thank you, Steve. That concludes the Q&A section of the earnings call. I would now turn the call back over to Mr. Wilson for closing remarks.

David Wilson

Thank you, Anas, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. We're pleased with the strong start to the year and our progress that we are making across the combined organization.

We have significant opportunities ahead of us, and our confidence continues to grow in our ability to drive sustainable organic growth, expand margins, generate strong free cash flow, and reduce debt.

Most importantly, I want to thank our more than 7,000 team members around the world for their continued focus on our customers and strong execution.

We look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.