Ascent (ACNT) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Date

Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

Call participants

• Chief Executive Officer — J. Bryan Kitchen
• Chief Financial Officer — Ryan Kavalauskas
• Operator — [No full name given; delivered only prepared remarks and Q&A facilitation]

Takeaways

• Gross margin expansion -- Nearly 1,000 basis-point improvement for the full year, with a 61% increase in gross profit, as stated by management.
• Revenue performance -- Net sales grew 4% in the quarter, with a 6% increase in shipments, even as incremental pounds skewed toward lower price, lower margin wins, resulting in consolidated spread compression.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Full-year adjusted EBITDA improved by $4.1 million year over year, recording a loss of $570,000, while the quarterly adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $1.1 million, down roughly $600,000 from the prior year.
• Net sales decline (full year) -- Sales declined 7.2% as a 17.7% contraction in demand more than offset 10.9% pricing action.
• Profitability (quarter) -- Gross profit for the quarter was flat year over year, decreasing by less than $50,000, and gross margin declined by approximately 90 basis points due to mix and cyclical pressures.
• Pipeline conversion -- Achieved a 25% pipeline conversion rate in the quarter, winning 38 projects across 23 customers and securing $9.4 million of annualized revenue commitments, with $7.1 million from a major new customer program and $2.3 million from other wins with margins exceeding 40%.
• Digital strategy impact -- Website traffic increased by 218% and contact submissions rose 122% within a week of repositioning the company's digital demand engine in December.
• Structural cost reduction -- Over $5 million in labor, overhead, and other costs were removed compared to 2024, more than offsetting targeted reinvestment.
• Facility exit -- The permanent exit from the Munhall facility is projected to contribute approximately $2.1 million in run-rate improvement in 2026.
• Liquidity -- Ended the quarter with $57.6 million in cash, no debt, and $11.4 million of additional revolver availability.
• Share repurchase -- Repurchased approximately 7% of outstanding shares in the year, as management prioritized capital returns during advantageous share price levels.
• SG&A expense -- Quarterly SG&A was $6.5 million, up from $5.4 million in the prior-year period, with more than $200,000 driven by litigation settlement costs and higher stock compensation and incentive payouts, partially offset by professional fee reductions.
• R&D-driven wins -- Approximately 95% of the quarter's project wins were enabled by research and development initiatives, per management's breakdown.
• Capital expenditure efficiency -- Deployed $435,000 to reactivate idle equipment, avoiding more than $3.7 million in new investment for similar capabilities.

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Risks

• "Fourth quarter results reflected continued end market softness and unfavorable mix, which pressured absorption and led to sequential moderation in margin and adjusted EBITDA," explicitly identifying end-market demand weakness as a headwind.
• Gross margin declined by approximately 90 basis points during the quarter due to mix shift toward lower margin business and demand variability.
• Quarterly adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $1.1 million, a decrease of roughly $600,000 compared to the previous year's comparable period.
• Quarterly SG&A increased to $6.5 million versus $5.4 million in the prior-year period, with over $200,000 tied to litigation settlement expense and increased incentive compensation costs, suggesting operational expense headwinds.

Summary

Ascent Industries (NASDAQ:ACNT) concluded the period with a materially improved financial profile following a shift to a pure play specialty chemicals model and divestiture of its legacy tubular segment. Management confirmed modernized demand generation efforts, with record digital engagement, and reported a significant pipeline conversion rate tied directly to enhanced cross-functional coordination. The balance sheet ended with substantial liquidity, no debt, and capital returned to shareholders through share repurchases, while operating leverage is positioned to benefit from cost reductions and efficiency gains.

• Management said, "we delivered these results while fully exiting our legacy tubular segment," confirming strategic execution that now positions the company as a focused specialty chemicals business.
• Company leadership indicated that major new customer wins were "predicated on us actually receiving firm purchase orders for shipment," underscoring the conservatism in reported pipeline achievements.
• Ryan Kavalauskas reported, "cash conversion cycle down to 61 days," evidencing tightened working capital management and enhanced resilience during soft demand conditions.
• Guidance for consolidated gross margin remains in the "mid-twenties to lower thirties" percentage range for the foreseeable future, based on both management statements and project pipeline quality.
• Near-term strategic focus is on organic growth, disciplined capital reinvestment, and opportunistic share repurchases, with mergers and acquisitions considered only if target utilization and fit are compelling.

Industry glossary

• Pipeline conversion: The percentage of sales opportunities (projects) in the business development pipeline that are closed into firm orders and translate to revenue commitments.
• Adjusted EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, further adjusted to exclude one-time, non-recurring, or non-cash expenses, used to assess core operational performance.
• Gross margin: The percentage of revenue remaining after deducting cost of goods sold, a direct measure of profitability on sales prior to overhead and other expenses.
• SG&A: Selling, general, and administrative expenses, encompassing overhead costs not directly tied to production.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ascent Industries Co. Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, J. Bryan Kitchen.

J. Bryan Kitchen: Thanks, Josh, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we continue, I would like to remind all participants that the discussion today may contain certain forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws. These statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. I’d encourage all those listening to this call to review the latest 10-Q and 10-K posted on our website for a summary of these risks and uncertainties. Ascent Industries Co. does not undertake the responsibility to update any forward-looking statements. Further, the discussion today may include non-GAAP measures.

In accordance with Regulation G, the company has reconciled these amounts back to the closest GAAP-based measurement. The reconciliations can be found in the earnings press release, issued earlier today and posted on the Investors section of the company's website at www.asynco.com. Please note that this call is available for replay via our webcast link that is also posted on the Investors section of the company's website. Now with that, let's talk about the business.

We exited 2025 as a pure play specialty chemical company and a structurally stronger business. Gross margin expanded nearly 1,000 basis points. Gross profit increased 61%. Adjusted EBITDA improved by more than $4 million year over year, despite operating on approximately 7% lower revenue. And we delivered these results while fully exiting our legacy tubular segment. That is not cyclical recovery. That is structural improvement. The business we are building has a higher earnings power and we are still in the early stages of unlocking it.

Fourth quarter results reflected continued end market softness and unfavorable mix, which pressured absorption and led to sequential moderation in margin and adjusted EBITDA. While the quarter did not extend the momentum of Q2 and Q3, it does not alter the trajectory of our business. Importantly, we did not chase volume to protect optics. We protected margin integrity. We are reshaping our book of business towards higher margin, lower volatility revenue. That transition can create short-term variability, but the earnings foundation today is materially stronger and more durable than what it was 12 months ago.

Against that backdrop, fourth quarter was defined by several tangible advances that reinforced our structural progress. We permanently exited the Munhall facility, eliminating a legacy drag that will contribute approximately $2.1 million of run-rate improvement in 2026. We secured a significant new commercial program expected to generate more than $10 million of incremental annualized revenue that will improve operating leverage across two of our manufacturing sites. Our pipeline conversion reached 25% in Q4. We won 38 projects across 23 customers with an average sales cycle of 2.9 months. These wins generated commitments of $9.4 million of annualized revenue. Approximately $7.1 million came from a new customer program, and $2.3 million came from additional wins carrying margins in excess of 40%.

The majority of these wins came from existing customers, reinforcing strong runway with share-of-wallet expansion. Product sales represented 47% of the wins, with custom manufacturing contributing the balance. In the fourth quarter, we added a record $43.4 million of new selling projects, and sunsetted $40.8 million. Of the projects that we removed, some reflected continued demand softness, while others were opportunities we chose not to pursue because they did not meet our return threshold.

Finally, in December, we modernized the demand engine. Website traffic increased 218% and contact submissions rose 122% within a week of repositioning our digital strategy. These advances were achieved while removing more than $5 million of labor, overhead, and other costs as compared to 2024, more than offsetting targeted reinvestment. We are strengthening the business while lowering the structural cost base.

What underpins this progress and gives it durability is a deliberate upgrade of our operating platform across marketing, sales, R&D, and operations. These were not defensive moves. They were intentional investments in people, processes, tools, and capabilities designed to improve coordination, discipline, and earnings quality.

In marketing, we built and scaled a measurable demand engine that did not exist two years ago. This function is tightly integrated with both sales and R&D, generating quality qualified opportunities and strengthening our authority in priority chemistries and markets. In 2025, marketing delivered a return on investment well in excess of 100% across trade shows, digital demand, and inside sales campaigns. And that engine is translating into commercial momentum.

In sales, resources are directed towards customers and programs that meet defined return thresholds and generate durable earnings. We are not managing for pipeline optics. We are managing for margin, cash generation, and long-term retention. Through structured account planning and executive engagement, we are embedding our solutions in customer formulations and validated workflows, increasing defensibility as integration deepens.

R&D has become a growth catalyst. Approximately 95% of our fourth quarter wins were driven by or enabled by R&D efforts, including formulation development, process optimization, and scale-up support, and that depth is elevating conversion quality, strengthening our margins, and shortening our sales cycle times.

In operations, we prioritize leverage over expansion. Rather than adding fixed costs, we revitalize existing assets and debottleneck capacity. Guided by a disciplined return on investment mindset, we deployed approximately $435,000 to bring idle equipment back online—capability that would have required more than $3.7 million of new investment. This improves asset utilization and expands capability without increasing structural overhead.

What gives us confidence in this next phase is the operating discipline now embedded across the organization. Quality, service, and reliability across our asset base have never been stronger. Teams are increasing uptime, driving out waste, and executing with appropriate urgency. And that execution is the backbone of our margin expansion story. It enables us to grow efficiently, protect profitability, and deliver for customers in any environment. Every investment we make in people, processes, or technology is deliberate and return driven.

And we are doing this from a position of financial strength. We ended the year with significant liquidity, no debt, a clean balance sheet, and that’s after buying back approximately 7% of our outstanding shares. Our strong balance sheet gives us resilience in a soft demand environment, and flexibility to continue investing in high return opportunities.

Stepping back, as I reflect on 2025, I am proud of what the team has delivered. We improved margins and earnings in a difficult market while reshaping the portfolio and reinforcing the foundation of the business. And that does not happen by accident. It reflects ownership, accountability, and disciplined execution across the organization.

As we look ahead, our priorities are clear. Deepen customer partnerships through innovation, reliability, and speed. Fill available capacity with high margin organic growth. Preserve balance sheet strength and allocate capital with discipline. We are not waiting on the market to recover. The market did not do it to us, and the market is not going to fix it for us. We are building a stronger company regardless of the cycle and positioning it to compound. Our company looks very different today than when we began this journey two short years ago. It is stronger, more disciplined, and built for durability. To the entire Ascent Industries Co. team, thank you. You are our unfair advantage.

And with that, I will turn it over to Ryan to walk through the financials in more detail. Ryan?

Ryan Kavalauskas: Thanks, Bryan, and good afternoon, everyone. Starting with net revenue, the key takeaway for the quarter is that we delivered year-over-year growth, despite an uneven demand environment. Net sales increased 4%, as higher throughput from programs ramping supported a 6% lift in shipments. As expected, that benefit came with a mix shift. Incremental pounds skewed toward lower price, lower margin wins, which compressed spreads on a consolidated basis.

Turning to the full year, net sales declined 7.2% as a 17.7% contraction in demand more than offset 10.9% in pricing action. In that context, we remain disciplined on value and continue to sharpen mix and execution, positioning the book to participate as volumes normalize.

From a profitability standpoint in the quarter, while mix and the broader cycle remained uneven, gross profit was essentially flat year over year, down less than $50,000, and gross margin declined by approximately 90 basis points. Holding margin movement to that level given the spread compression and demand variability is a solid outcome, and it reinforces that we are scaling throughput without compromising the earning profile we are building.

Stepping back to the full year, gross profit increased by $6.5 million and gross margin expanded by nearly 1,000 basis points, driven by 2.5% improvement in material profit as our sourcing initiatives, product line management, and operating execution took hold across the portfolio.

Moving to SG&A, expenses were $6.5 million compared to $5.4 million in the prior-year period. The year-over-year comparison is influenced by merit accrual reversals in 2024 along with an unfavorable impact from litigation settlement expenses in the current period. On a full-year basis, SG&A was up $3.2 million, largely driven by $2.1 million related to legacy Munhall and Palmer activity that was reclassed to SG&A in the second quarter, as well as stock compensation and incentive payouts, partially offset by reductions in professional fees.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of $1.1 million, a decrease of roughly $600,000 year over year. Full-year EBITDA was a loss of $570,000, an improvement of $4.1 million year over year.

Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $57.6 million of cash, no debt, and $11.4 million of incremental availability under our revolver. We finished the year with significant liquidity and a clean balance sheet, which gives us flexibility and staying power as we move through this part of the cycle. And with the cash conversion cycle down to 61 days, we are demonstrating tighter working capital discipline, building confidence that the business is getting more resilient, even as demand softens.

J. Bryan Kitchen: With that, I will turn it back to the operator for questions.

Ryan Kavalauskas: Thank you.

J. Bryan Kitchen: Thank you.

Operator: As a reminder, to ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 11 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Adam Waldo with Lismore Partners LLC. You may proceed.

Adam Waldo: Yes. Good day, Bryan and Ryan. I hope you can hear me okay.

Ryan Kavalauskas: Yes. We can.

Adam Waldo: Okay. Thanks. So I wanted to dig in a little bit more on the cadence of the quarter by month as you released your third quarter results. Were you starting to see some of the softness or did that develop really late in the quarter? And how is the macro environment as we sit here two months into the first quarter? Obviously, the geopolitical developments the last few days, but before that were you seeing an improving macro environment?

J. Bryan Kitchen: Yeah, Adam. I really appreciate the question. So related to the demand build inside of 2025, what we are dealing with is still some inherent seasonality challenges with the legacy book of business. Really strong Q2, really strong Q3, and a little bit of softness in Q4 and Q1. So, as I mentioned in the script, one of the things that we are working on is building a more stable, ratable book of business throughout the year so we can minimize the impact of some of the seasonality volatility that we have.

Related to the most recent conflict that emerged over the weekend, what I would say is, look, with the cost of petroleum, input raw material costs will likely go up. And if and when they do, we have already demonstrated the ability to pass along those raw material increases to customers. So we are pretty well protected on that.

Adam Waldo: That is very helpful. Now, as we are sort of building up our outlook for 2026, just directionally—I know you do not give specific forward guidance—but you issued a press release on December 1 about the sizable new win of over $10 million in annualized revenue, which portended mid-teens or better revenue growth in 2026 if the existing same-client revenues were flattish year over year relative to 2025. Are you still comfortable that the company, based on that win and the existing new business pipeline and backlog, can deliver double-digit revenue growth for 2026?

J. Bryan Kitchen: That is certainly the plan. Yes. That piece of new business that we won has started, it is beginning to scale, and I think we are on track for getting that to full run rate early Q2.

Adam Waldo: Okay. And last question, and thank you for allowing the questions. Are we feeling pretty good about the ability to deliver a consolidated gross margin that is at or above the low thirties or better level, to which Ryan had said the company kind of on a steady-state basis is aspiring on a consolidated basis, pro forma for the tubular divestitures and having moved the Munhall facility off the books?

J. Bryan Kitchen: I will start—Ryan, you can jump in. Certainly, that is what we are running and gunning towards. What we said from day one is we were targeting margins in that 30% to 35% range that flow through to SG&A of 15%. Obviously, we need to grow into that SG&A, and then flow through all the way down to 15% EBITDA margins. That was not an immediate target—this month, this quarter, or even this year. That was a long-term target. But you can do a quick look back at our performance in Q2 and Q3 and what we delivered was squarely in the upper twenties to the lower thirties range.

And the new business we have been bringing on more recently is at higher gross margins.

Adam Waldo: So is it reasonably conservative but plausible to expect consolidated gross margin for 2026 in at least the high 20s to low 30s range that you articulated, Bryan?

J. Bryan Kitchen: Yeah. I think so. I mean, look, there are always going to be puts and takes along the way. We will see how the year shapes. But certainly, the mid-twenties to lower thirties is still our target.

Adam Waldo: Okay. Thanks so much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Gregg Kitt with Pinnacle. You may proceed.

Gregg Kitt: Hi, Bryan and Ryan. Thank you for taking my questions. First, congratulations on a good year in which you had to accomplish a lot with divestitures and managing the portfolio. And through that, you were still continuing to win new business. I have read your comment that you are exiting with a clean and focused platform, capable of delivering higher quality earnings and operating leverage. If I could break it down into revenue, margins, and operating leverage—kind of piggybacking on some of Adam's questions. On revenue: just to make sure that I understood, did you say that you won $9.4 million of business in the quarter?

And then how do I reconcile that with the December 1 announcement of the $10 million-plus that you announced? I was a little confused.

J. Bryan Kitchen: Hey, Gregg. That’s right. What we flashed was $9.4 million of wins in the fourth quarter, of which I believe $7.1 million was attributed to that new customer program. The $2.3 million balance came from additional new customer wins outside of the programmatic one that we announced.

Gregg Kitt: Okay. And so that $7.1 million—there is an opportunity for that to continue to grow to reach that $10 million potential?

Ryan Kavalauskas: Absolutely. Yes.

Gregg Kitt: Great. And is there some way to think about—you had talked about somewhere in the range of a combined $30 million of wins over the course of 2025. Is there any way to think about how much, if any, of that contributed to results last year?

J. Bryan Kitchen: It is a good question. Let me take an action, and I will follow up with you on that in our follow-up call. I do not want to spitball a number. But I did want to go back to your prior question around the $7.1 million versus the $10 million and reconcile that. Of the $9.4 million that we referenced, it is predicated on us actually receiving firm purchase orders for shipment. So part of that $10 million—we have shipped out a number of SKUs, but we have not shipped out all of them. And because of that, there is going to be some bleed over into the first quarter.

Gregg Kitt: Oh, that is great. Thank you for that clarification. I think the big thing for me is not to say that you were distracted, but you did have other operational focuses with the divestitures that you do not have anymore. And so I look at the platform and say, hey, you can just focus on winning business. And something that you said in your prepared remarks that was interesting was that you invested some amount of dollars to effectively expand your capability in a cost-effective manner rather than having to buy new equipment. What are you looking at? Or maybe walk us through that decision because you have talked about how your assets are relatively underutilized.

J. Bryan Kitchen: Yeah. So just to be clear, what I said was expand our capability, not our capacity. This is not a function of adding additional reactors to the mix because, as you know, we already have a fair amount that are grossly underutilized. What this really refers to is putting old storage tanks back into commission to support new business that we have won. Another example is in Virginia—we had rail capability going inbound into our multipurpose plant that at some point had been paved over with asphalt. The team in Virginia found a really creative way, in partnership with the local railroad, to get that back in service for nominally $20,000. So just another example.

But these are not material adds where we are going out and adding net new capacity. It is all about capabilities to support existing and new business.

Gregg Kitt: Great, thank you. On the gross margin side, that was the only piece where I said I cannot wait to learn more because you had great linear progress in Q2 and Q3 of last year. This is volume and revenue-based—you are absorbing fixed overhead—so I expected margins to be down this quarter. Can you give us any way to think about gross margins going forward? Did anything you saw in the fourth quarter make you revisit your margin targets and say this might take a little bit longer than we thought or be more challenging than we thought?

J. Bryan Kitchen: No. But I will let Ryan jump in on that. Ryan?

Ryan Kavalauskas: Yeah, nothing in the quarter changed our view. We had some inventory adjustments, some accruals, and things like that—so a handful of one-time items. We also did some building of stock, and for some customers where we control the raw material spend, you see raw material cost come up; the margins are the same, but those pass-through dynamics came through in the fourth quarter. Nothing that we saw is structural—it is more just timing and, predominantly, mix. For some of our newer customers we were aware that there was a volume aspect that we were willing to trade for margin.

We will not always do that, but in scenarios where our plants are so grossly underutilized, these deals come few and far between in this macro environment. So we took on that business, and we did see some of that mix effect, which compressed margin in the quarter, but nothing that makes me think our targets of plus 30% are unachievable. We will continue to march that way, though some quarters will get choppy and the mix will throw off that linear progression you saw. We should get back to the low-to-mid 20% here for the first half and then start to ramp back up as capacity and utilization increase.

Gregg Kitt: Thank you. Two more for me—quick ones. On SG&A, is there any way to think about that litigation settlement, how material that was in the quarter?

Ryan Kavalauskas: It was about $200,000, a little over $200,000. That was an issue we have been working on, and we finally got it wrapped up. It was a good outcome versus where we thought it could land. So call it $200,000-plus.

Gregg Kitt: Thank you. And then you and the board announced the share repurchase authorization back in November. Not a ton of traction in the fourth quarter. Can you help us think about capital allocation? I am assuming you are still continuing to look at potential acquisitions and how you weigh that versus share repurchases.

Ryan Kavalauskas: Predominantly, the first thing we focus on is reinvestment in the assets. As Bryan mentioned, some of that can be capability enhancements, process improvements, first-time-in-spec—things like that where we can streamline and be more efficient. We will always allocate dollars to that first. When we looked at share buybacks, the stock was trading sub-15 and we thought there was a really good opportunity versus where we felt we could be in a few years, and then the stock did run up a bit—so it kind of came out of our buy box for a little bit. We will still have that in our quiver, and we will be opportunistic where we can. And M&A is always there.

Right now, there is so much capacity not only within our own assets, but within the broader industry in the U.S. We have not seen anything attractive to this point. We are continuing to be open and looking. But again, our first, second, and third focus is filling up our own assets. We will be cautious when we see assets come along that look similar in utilization to our own—we do not need that added problem. So the priority order is: invest in our assets and people first, opportunistically buy shares where the price looks right, and then if an attractive asset or product portfolio comes along, we are in a position to move quickly.

J. Bryan Kitchen: Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Howard Ruth with Fairhope Capital. You may proceed.

Howard Ruth: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my call, Bryan and Ryan. Just a little follow-up on the gross profit. I was kind of surprised going from 29% in Q3 down to 18% in Q4. Was any of that related to new contracts you took on, or is it the one-time items you were talking about? If it was not for the one-time expenses you had, would that have been closer to the 23% you had for the year? How much of that can we look at as one-time, one quarter, versus how much might continue into 2026?

Ryan Kavalauskas: I would say a little over half a million dollars was what I would consider one-time. Are they normal-course-of-business things like inventory accruals and the like? Yes. But they were headwinds in the quarter. When we look at comps year over year, there were some tailwinds in 2024 that we did not get in 2025. If you level that out, we would probably have been somewhere in the low 20% margin. So definitely a compression compared to Q3. Again, some of that is just mix shift—higher volume, lower mix customers. You compound that with some of the things we did to clean up inventory, and that pulled things back. These are not structural margin compressions we are seeing.

They are more timing and mix related. We should get back into the 20% range going forward and then start to ramp back on that path closer to 30% where we hope to be long term.

Howard Ruth: Okay. Great. Thanks. Just a general question on the M&A environment. What are you seeing out there in terms of the size of targets and valuation, and your appetite for it as you get another quarter in? Is that something you want to do this year if it is exactly right, or are things getting into the right price range for you to do something now?

J. Bryan Kitchen: We are always in the hunt, but it has to be the right opportunity. As Ryan said, the last thing we want to do is go out and buy another distressed asset with relatively low utilization that would just compound our existing problem statement. What we would really like is a product line or product lines that we could acquire and then integrate into our manufacturing—get that utilization up and get that dual bump. We have not found that right opportunity just yet. We are not running away from M&A, but we certainly do not have any dollars burning a hole in our pocket, Howard.

Howard Ruth: Great. Alright, thanks, and thanks again for all the hard work last year getting this set on the right path forward. I look forward to a great 2026 for you guys.

J. Bryan Kitchen: I appreciate it, Howard.

Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to J. Bryan Kitchen for any closing remarks.

J. Bryan Kitchen: Okay, Josh. We would like to thank everyone for listening to today's call, and we look forward to speaking with you all again when we report our first quarter 2026 results. Thanks very much, and have a great day.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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