Roper (ROP) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 8 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• President and Chief Executive Officer — Neil Hunn
• Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer — Jason Conley
• Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer — Brandon Cross
• Senior Vice President of Finance — Shannon O'Callaghan
• Vice President, Investor Relations — Zack Moxcey

TAKEAWAYS

• Total Revenue -- $2.1 billion, representing 11% growth, with 6% organic and 5% inorganic contributions.
• Free Cash Flow -- $562 million, up 11%, with trailing 12-month free cash flow at $2.5 billion and a 19% CAGR for three years.
• EBITDA -- $797 million, up 8%, with a margin of 38.1% and core margin down 70 basis points, largely due to segment mix and higher input costs.
• DEPS (Diluted Earnings Per Share) -- $5.16, up 8% and above guidance, attributed to strong organic growth, a lower tax rate, and reduced share count.
• Recurring Software Revenue Growth -- 7% across software segments, signaling continued durability and business health.
• Enterprise Gross Retention -- Remained consistently in the mid-90% range, demonstrating high customer stickiness.
• Enterprise Software Bookings -- Core bookings up low double digits on a trailing twelve-month basis, excluding price increases.
• Share Repurchases -- 6 million shares repurchased for $2.2 billion since November; 4.9 million shares bought for $1.7 billion year-to-date, reducing shares outstanding to 102.4 million at Q1 end.
• Increased Share Repurchase Authorization -- Board authorized an additional $3 billion for share buybacks, raising total remaining authorization to $3.8 billion and capital deployment capacity to over $5 billion.
• Leverage and Liquidity -- Net debt to EBITDA at 3.1x, $383 million in cash, and $2 billion drawn on a new $3.5 billion 5-year revolving credit facility.
• Raised Full-Year DEPS Guidance -- New range of $21.80 to $22.05, increased by $0.50 at midpoint from prior guidance.
• Full-Year Revenue Guidance -- Reiterated outlook for approximately 8% total revenue growth and 5%-6% organic growth.
• AI Initiatives -- Broad rollout of new AI-enabled features across businesses, including CentralReach, ConstructConnect, Vertafore, iPipeline, Aderant, DAT, Subsplash, and SoftWriters; Roper’s AI Accelerator team contributed to portfolio-wide AI deployment and speed.
• Application Software Segment Performance -- 12% total revenue growth and 5% organic, with 13% EBITDA growth, 42% EBITDA margin, and recurring/reoccurring revenue comprising about 85% of the segment.
• Network Software Segment Performance -- 14% total revenue growth and 5% organic, 50.7% EBITDA margin (down 460 bps year over year), with stable core margins and margin drag from the Subsplash acquisition and ongoing investment in DAT’s Convoy.
• Technology-Enabled Products Segment Performance -- 9% total and 7% organic revenue growth, 33.6% EBITDA margin (down 260 bps), with notable strength at NDI and Verathon; Neptune revenue declined low single digits but outperformed expectations.
• SaaS Transition Progress -- About two-thirds of Application Software products are now cloud-enabled, with maintenance-to-SaaS conversions expected to deliver 2x-2.5x uplift over 5–10 years, contributing 50–100 basis points of growth annually.
• Segment Outlooks -- Both Application and Network Software segments projected for mid-single-digit plus organic growth for the balance of the year; Technology-Enabled Products segment to remain solid despite raw material pressure and tougher Q2 comps.

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RISKS

• Core EBITDA margin declined 70 basis points overall, mainly due to lower gross margins in the Technology-Enabled Products segment from a mix shift toward consumables and persistent input cost inflation at Neptune.
• Neptune’s market faced ongoing raw material cost headwinds, with input costs expected to "stay high for a while," potentially impacting margins until higher prices flow through backlog over several quarters.
• Guidance assumes no meaningful improvement for Deltek’s GovCon or DAT’s freight markets, with management citing continued procurement delays and uncertainty in the government contracting sector.
• Network Software segment’s EBITDA margin fell 460 basis points year over year, attributed to margin dilution from Subsplash and ongoing investment losses at DAT’s Convoy.

SUMMARY

Roper Technologies (NASDAQ:ROP) reported robust top-line and cash flow growth, increased its capital deployment firepower, and broadened AI integration across its portfolio. Management highlighted that recent M&A market dislocations have improved Roper’s buyer advantage, and new data confirms accelerating AI-driven product development impacting both customer efficiency and monetization approaches. Software businesses are moving more rapidly to cloud-native and agentic products, setting up additional medium-term tailwinds, while segment outlooks balance strong recurring growth against cautious expectations for end-market recoveries.

• Management stated, "we expect the pace of partnerships with our operating companies to accelerate throughout the year." regarding the AI Accelerator team’s role in driving faster portfolio-wide AI adoption.
• CEO Hunn stated, "We will remain disciplined and unbiased between acquisitions and opportunistic buybacks based on what drives the highest and most durable cash flow per share compounding," underscoring sustained focus on shareholder value.
• Acquisition pipeline remains active and increasingly proprietary, with Roper emphasizing readiness to capitalize as more opportunities emerge from constrained private credit markets.
• CentralReach achieved notable AI adoption metrics, with 75% of new business bookings AI-related, demonstrating measurable operational gains for clients and recurring revenue expansion.
• Recurring and reoccurring revenues accounted for about 85% of Application Software segment totals, reducing nonrecurring volatility.
• Cloud-enabled product parity and AI feature differentiation are expected to accelerate customer conversions and provide incremental monetization paths across software segments.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• TEP: Technology-Enabled Products segment at Roper, referring to hardware and device-focused businesses with recurring consumable or software components.
• GovCon: Government Contractor market served notably by the Deltek business; includes companies engaged in federal contracting activities.
• TAM: Total Addressable Market, referencing the total revenue opportunity in a given sector or for a new solution.
• Agentic: Refers to software using AI-powered agents capable of automating workflows, decision-making, or other complex, multi-step tasks within vertical SaaS applications.
• Convoy: DAT’s agentic, machine learning-powered freight marketplace solution targeting end-to-end transaction workflow and margin capture.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Good morning. The Roper Technologies Conference Call will now begin. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Zack Moxcey, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Zack Moxcey: Good morning, and thank you all for joining us as we discuss the first quarter 2026 financial results for Roper Technologies. Joining me on the call this morning are Neil Hunn, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jason Conley, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Brandon Cross, Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer; and Shannon O'Callaghan, Senior Vice President of Finance. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release announcing our financial results. The press release also includes replay information for today's call. We have prepared slides to accompany today's call, which are available through the webcast and are also available on our website. And now if you please turn to Page 2. We begin with our safe harbor statement.

During the course of today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties as described on this page in our press release and in our SEC filings. You should listen to today's call in the context of that information. Now please turn to Page 3. Today, we will discuss our results primarily on an adjusted non-GAAP and continuing operations basis. For the first quarter, the difference between our GAAP results and adjusted results consists of the following items: amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets and financial impacts associated with our minority investment in Indicor. Reconciliations can be found in our press release and in the appendix of this presentation on our website.

And now if you please turn to Page 4, I'll hand the call over to Neil. After our prepared remarks, we will take questions from our telephone participants. Neil?

Neil Hunn: Thank you, Zack, and thanks to everyone for joining our call. As we turn to Page 4, you'll see the topics we will cover today. We'll start by highlighting our Q1 enterprise performance, then Jason will walk through the enterprise financials, our balance sheet and provide an update on our share repurchase program. Then we'll discuss our segment highlights and outlook and introduce our Q2 and increased full year 2026 guidance. Finally, we'll close with a few summary points before opening the call for questions. So let's go ahead and get started. Next slide, please. As we turn to Page 5, I want to highlight 3 takeaways for today's call.

First, we delivered a strong start to 2026 and are raising our full year debt guidance. Our Q1 results exceeded expectations across every key metric. Total revenue grew 11%, organic revenue grew 6%, EBITDA grew 8%, free cash flow grew 11% and DEPS was $5.16. Importantly, enterprise gross retention remained strong, consistently in the mid-90s area. On that foundation, enterprise software bookings were also strong, core up low double digits on a TTM basis. This continues the momentum from our last call and bolsters our confidence for the balance of the year.

On the back of this quarter's performance, we're raising our full year DEPS guidance to a range of $21.80 to $22.05, up $0.50 at the midpoint and more on this later. Second, we're continuing to accelerate AI velocity across the portfolio. In Q1, AI innovation continued to broaden across our businesses, move deeper into core products and increasingly show up in both product road maps and customer conversations. Businesses like CentralReach, ConstructConnect, Vertafore, iPipeline, Aderant, DAT, Subsplash and SoftWriters all released meaningful new AI-enabled product capabilities during the quarter. The signal from our own portfolio that AI can be a meaningful growth driver in vertical software keeps getting clearer by the day.

On the AI accelerator team at Roper, as a reminder, this is a central strike team that partners directly with our operating company to accelerate AI product development and capture reusable patterns for deployment across the portfolio. The team is ramping quickly. The team's first partnership was with Vertafore, helping deliver AI agents unveiled at their customer conference last week. This is exactly the kind of portfolio impact we envisioned when we invested in this team, and we expect the pace of partnerships with our operating companies to accelerate throughout the year. And our third takeaway centers on capital deployment.

Since November last year, we've repurchased 6 million shares for $2.2 billion, including 4.9 million shares for $1.7 billion year-to-date in 2026. Importantly, our Board authorized an additional $3 billion of repurchase capacity, giving us $3.8 billion of remaining authorization and north of $5 billion of total capital deployment capacity over the next 12 months. Our approach remains unchanged. We're disciplined and unbiased between acquisitions and opportunistic buybacks, focusing on driving the best risk-adjusted long-term cash flow compounding per share for shareholders. Our M&A pipeline today is targeted, focused on high-quality strategic opportunities where we're developing deep relationships and real conviction, and we expect to remain active and disciplined long-term buyers.

Before I turn it to Jason, one theme you will hear throughout today's call, organizational velocity across our portfolio continues to build. The investments we've made over the past 2 years in leadership, in AI, in modern engineering practices and operational rigor are working and demonstrating meaningful results. Our businesses are releasing innovation faster, executing sharper and moving with more confidence. And that's what gives us conviction in the balance of the year and beyond. So with that, Jason, let me turn the call over to you.

Jason Conley: Thanks, Neil, and good morning, everyone. I'll take you through our first quarter financial performance, starting on Slide 6. As you heard, we delivered a strong first quarter, finishing well above the high end of our DEPS guidance range and ahead of expectations on organic growth. Revenue of $2.1 billion was up 11% with organic growth of 6% and acquisitions contributing 5%. Importantly, recurring software revenue growth across our software segments was again strong at 7%, which continues to be the best indicator of business health and durability. EBITDA of $797 million was up 8% over prior year. EBITDA margin was 38.1%.

Our core EBITDA margin was down 70 basis points in the quarter, driven by lower gross margins in our TEP segment due to mix of more consumables at NDI and Verathon, coupled with higher input costs at Neptune. Core EBITDA margins in our software segment expanded 40 basis points, which includes continued investment in AI. DEPS of $5.16 was above our guidance range of $4.95 to $5 and up 8% over prior year. The upside was driven by the combination of stronger organic growth, a lower tax rate and the benefit of lower share count resulting from our net purchasing activity in Q1. Free cash flow of $562 million was up 11% over prior year.

On a trailing 12-month basis, free cash flow is now $2.5 billion and has compounded at a 19% CAGR over the last 3 years or 15% excluding the impact of Section 174. We continue to view free cash flow per share as the most important metric in evaluating our progress. And on that basis, we were up 15% versus the prior year, given the combination of growing cash flow and a declining share count. Relatedly and for modeling purposes, we exited Q1 with [ 102.4 ] million shares outstanding. Now if you turn with me to Slide 7, I'll walk through our financial position and capital deployment update.

We exited Q1 at 3.1x net debt to EBITDA, which is up modestly from 2.9x at year-end, given the $1.5 billion we deployed towards share repurchases in the quarter. We have $383 million of cash and $2 billion drawn on our $3.5 billion revolver. Importantly, we closed on a new 5-year $3.5 billion revolving credit facility during the quarter, which provides ample liquidity and improved pricing and terms. This also enhances our cost of capital strategic advantage in the face of an increasingly constrained private credit market that other market participants looking to make acquisitions will be facing.

Even after significant repurchase activity in Q1, we maintained over $5 billion of annualized capacity for capital deployment, which speaks to the strength of Roper's cash generation engine. Neil highlighted the share repurchase activity in the opening. To put it in perspective, our cumulative 6 million of share repurchases is about 6% of shares outstanding and brings us back to a share count we have not seen since 2017. Additionally, our Board approved expanding our share repurchase authorization by another $3 billion, which provides capital deployment flexibility and reflects continued confidence in our vertical market software position, enhanced capabilities and execution velocity to capture the AI opportunities in front of us.

On M&A, the pipeline of high-quality opportunities remains very attractive. As we've discussed, we believe the structural dynamics in the PE-backed software market and a constrained private credit market continue to create a compelling environment for Roper. We remain active and disciplined. With that, I'll turn it back over to Neil to discuss the segment performance and outlook. Neil?

Neil Hunn: Thanks, Jason. As you turn to Page 9, let's review our Application Software segment. Revenue for the quarter grew 12% in total and organic revenue growth was 5%. EBITDA grew 13%, EBITDA margins were 42% and core margins improved 50 basis points year-over-year. The quality growth here is notable. Recurring and reoccurring revenue, about 85% of the segment grew in the mid-single-digit plus range, while nonrecurring was essentially flat. Stepping back at the segment level, 3 themes stand out for the quarter. First, enterprise gross retention remained strong, consistently in the mid-90s area.

On that foundation, enterprise bookings were also strong in the quarter, consistent with the momentum we described in our January call and supportive of our confidence for the balance of the year. Second, our SaaS transitions continue to advance meaningfully. Several of our larger businesses made real progress on ground to cloud conversions and on bringing new cloud-native products to market. And third, AI progress continued to build to signal of shifting from product investment to product shipping and you'll see this clearly in the 3 company highlights to follow. First, Aderant delivered a record quarter, strong revenue growth and a new Q1 bookings record. Strength was broad-based with particularly strong SaaS momentum on Sierra, Onyx and viGlobal.

Aderant also launched AI-driven talent evaluation within viGlobal, continued the rollout of a Stridyn AI platform and completed a record number of Sierra Cloud migrations in the quarter. Simply put, Aderant is winning in the legal market and doing so from a position of strength. Second, Vertafore delivered a solid quarter, steady mid-single-digit revenue growth with EBITDA ahead of revenue. Recurring revenue continued to build across agency, MGA and carrier with MGA again leading on double-digit growth driven by strong bookings and high retention.

And last week at their Accelerate user conference in Las Vegas, Vertafore unveiled its new Velocity AI platform, along with a suite of AI agents embedded across the product portfolio from reference connect and reconciliation to submission processing and e-mail agent automation. AI is a meaningful TAM expansion opportunity for Vertafore, and they're quickly moving to capture it. As I mentioned earlier, this is where the Roper AI Accelerator team had its first impact and is exciting to see. And third, CentralReach continues to execute ahead of our deal model. Recurring software revenue grew well north of 20% with margins expanding, demonstrating the operating leverage in this business as it scales.

And most importantly, CentralReach continues to be one of our strongest AI proof points. AI-generated session notes have dropped from 5 to 10 minutes to about 30 seconds, giving clinicians back roughly 8 hours a week to work with autism learners. BCVAs are saving 140-plus hours a year on report authoring and review and daily claim generation is 6x faster. Customers are responding. AI and AI influenced bookings were 75% of new business in the quarter, up from 0 2 years ago. This is a textbook example of how the AI right to win, we believe exists across our portfolio. CentralReach sits inside mission-critical workflows, has proprietary data and is translating that advantage into real growing AI revenue.

Prior to turning to the outlook for this section, I'll provide an update on Deltek and the GovCon market. Importantly, Deltek grew recurring revenue in the mid-single-digit plus range in the quarter, driven by strong private sector demand, partially offset by continued softness in GovCon enterprise. SaaS remains strong with ground-to-cloud conversions trending positively. Consistent with January, we're still waiting for the GovCon inflection. This is not new. We continue to work through the tail of last year's disruption to federal procurement, agency reorganizations and broader budget uncertainty, which has delaying decision-making, particularly on large enterprise perpetual deals. Longer term, we remain encouraged.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is a meaningful positive for defense and government contracting spend, but the benefit reaches us only after our customers win awards and invest in systems, and that takes a bit of time. Consistent with January, we are not baking into our guidance any GovCon inflection or any OBBB benefit and rather we'll adjust as conditions warrant. Turning to our outlook for Application Software. We expect organic growth for the balance of the year to be in the mid-single-digit plus range, lower in Q2 on some nonrecurring timing, improving in the back half of CentralReach turning organic and easing nonrecurring comps. Please turn us to Page 10.

Total revenue growth in our Network Software segment was 14% and organic revenue grew 5% in the quarter. The quality growth mirrored application software. Organic recurring grew mid-single-digit plus, nonrecurring declined mid-singles as customers move to our cloud offerings and bookings remained strong here. EBITDA margins were 50.7%, down 460 basis points year-over-year, while core margins held steady, down just 20 basis points. The gap reflects 2 dynamics: our acquisition of Subsplash, a faster growth business with a lower but steadily improving margin profile and our ongoing investment in DAT, particularly Convoy. Stepping back at the segment level, we see similar themes playing out here that we described in Application Software.

First, enterprise bookings were strong and gross retention remained high across our network businesses, together giving us improved visibility into the balance of the year. And second, AI progress is tangible and shipping to customers today. Let me highlight 3 businesses in this segment. First, DAT is executing well against a mixed freight backdrop. ARPU expansion continues and adoption of our digital freight marketplace solutions remain strong. On the macro, spot rates are up 20% to 30% year-over-year and the carrier side of our ecosystem grew in Q1 for the first time in several years, real green shoots, particularly in the second half of the quarter.

That said, a sharp diesel spike compressed carrier margins late in the quarter, and our guidance continues to assume no meaningful freight market recovery. Our early-stage investment in Convoy inside DAT represents a material TAM expansion opportunity. Today, DAT is a subscription-based 2-sided network. Brokers and carriers pay to access the largest freight marketplace in North America. With Convoy, DAT is evolving into a full end-to-end agentic and ML-powered marketplace, participating in the workflow and the economics of the transaction itself, a meaningfully larger and more valuable business over time. The innovation that enables this transformation exists and is working in the market, and we continue to enhance and extend the tech.

In the most recent quarter, DAT's RateView AI agent moved into live production, replacing manual rate lookups with instant conversational lane rate guidance. Convoy's [ Load Notes ] is turning brokers freeform emails and chat messages directly into bookable loads eliminating manual data entry and Loadlink's voice-to-post is enabling hands-free load posting. [ The AI ] work at DAT is not theoretical, it's shipping in production and delivering incredible value to customers today. Turning to ConstructConnect, another strong quarter with recurring revenue up double digits and continued breakout from Boost, their AI-based takeoff solution. AI Auto Count, which reads construction schedules, launches this quarter.

Most importantly, ConstructConnect has now moved its entire product and engineering organization into agentic coding processes and tools shipping 4x the features versus a year ago. Broadening this across the portfolio to drive multifold product velocity gains is a key priority and an exciting one for enterprise. And third, Foundry returned to year-over-year revenue growth in Q1 with Nuke closing the quarter at record ARR. Net retention returned above 100% for the first time since the 2023 actors and writers' strikes and our recent Griptape acquisition extends Foundry's leadership into AI orchestration across the visual effects and animation pipeline, enabling studios to securely coordinate multiple AI models and agents in their production and post-production workflows.

Finally, and prior to turning to our segment outlook, I'd like to make a couple of quick callouts. SoftWriters launched its AI-enabled order entry product last week, a meaningful workflow enhancement for long-term care pharmacies and Subsplash released Trends AI, giving ministry customers the ability to generate custom data insights through natural language prompts, a key unlock for this customer constituency. Turning to our outlook for network software. We expect organic growth for the balance of the year to be in the mid-single-digit plus range. A couple of quick callouts. Subsplash turns organic in Q4 and margins will reflect continued investment in our freight platform acquisitions for the balance of the year.

Now please turn to Page 11, and let's review our technology-enabled products segment. Revenue here grew 9% in total and 7% organic, significantly better than expected, driven by strength at NDI and Verathon. EBITDA margins were 33.6%, down 260 basis points year-over-year, reflecting 2 dynamics: first, input cost pressure at Neptune, principally bronze ingot inflation; and second, a mix shift at both NDI and Verathon towards faster-growing consumables, which carry lower gross margins but more durable reoccurring revenue profiles. Let me start with NDI. Another record quarter driven by exceptional demand for their electromagnetic tracking solutions across cardiac, neurological and orthopedic precision measurement applications. The EP market, in particular, is a strong multiyear growth vector for NDI.

Procedure volumes continue to grow, leading OEMs are introducing new tracking-enabled catheter platforms. NDI has a unique right to win as a sensor layer. Great job by Dave and the entire team at NDI. Turning to Neptune. Revenue declined low single digits in the quarter, which was better than expected, driven by strong execution from Don and the entire team in [ Tallahassee ]. The market dynamics were largely as expected with lower mechanical meter volumes partially offset by strong static meter growth. Importantly, Neptune's cloud-based software adoption continues to scale nicely, though off a small base. Consistent with our Q4 commentary, we're not underwriting a Neptune recovery in our 2026 guidance, and we'll continue to monitor underlying demand.

Rounding out the segment, Verathon delivered solid growth, supported by strong BFlex and GlideScope demand, and we're optimistic about new product launches planned for the balance of the year. Turning to our TEP outlook. We expect organic growth for the balance of the year to be in the mid-single-digit range, lower in the second quarter as we face a tougher Q2 comp. We expect net raw material pressure to continue in the second quarter and improving in the back half of the year. With that, please turn us to Page 13. On this slide, we'll cover our Q2 and full year 2026 guidance.

Specifically, we're raising our full year 2026 DEPS guidance to $21.80 to $22.05, up from $21.30 to $21.55, a $0.50 increase at the midpoint, which passes through our Q1 beat and the impact of our already executed share buyback. We're maintaining our full year total revenue growth guidance of approximately 8% and organic revenue growth of 5% to 6%. For the full year, we continue to assume a tax rate in the 21% area and a bit below that in Q2. For Q2, we're establishing our adjusted DEPS guidance of $5.25 to $5.30.

To reiterate key assumptions from our segment commentary, full year guidance assumes no meaningful improvement at Deltek's GovCon market or DAT's freight market and modest top line weakness at Neptune versus a year ago. Finally, on capital deployment, we're entering the balance of 2026 with meaningful optionality. We have $5 billion of firepower available over the next 12 months, a targeted M&A pipeline and $3.8 billion of remaining share repurchase authorization, giving us substantial flexibility to act opportunistically. We will remain disciplined and unbiased between acquisitions and opportunistic buybacks based on what drives the highest and most durable cash flow per share compounding. Now please turn to Page 14, and then we'll open it up for your questions.

We'll conclude with the same 3 takeaways with which we started. First, we delivered a strong start to 2026 with 11% revenue growth, 6% organic revenue and 11% free cash flow growth. Retention and bookings remain strong and position us well heading into the balance of the year. Based on this, we've raised our full year DEPS guidance by $0.50 at the midpoint. Second, we are accelerating AI innovation across the portfolio. CentralReach, ConstructConnect, Vertafore, DAT, Aderant and others continue to move AI deeper into their products and increasingly into customer activity, and our AI Accelerator team continues to build velocity across the portfolio.

Finally, on capital deployment, as we discussed earlier, our Board authorization of an additional $3 billion of share repurchase capacity gives us $3.8 billion of remaining authorization. Alongside that, we have $5 billion of capital deployment firepower available over the next 12 months, supporting our targeted M&A pipeline. We will remain disciplined and unbiased between acquisitions and opportunistic buybacks based on what drives the highest and most durable cash flow per share compounding. As we wrap up, some additional color on the M&A market. A quarter ago, our pipeline was at record levels. Shortly after our call, the broader public software valuation drawdown caused sellers to pause most active processes. We remain active and our pipeline leans more proprietary.

That said, we expect M&A activity to pick back up, timing of which is still to be determined. But when it moves, a large number of opportunities are likely to emerge and we're in an advantaged position to capitalize on this. We remain very bullish about being a high conviction acquirer of vertical market software businesses with deep proprietary moats where AI accelerates growth. The signal on that thesis from our own portfolio is becoming clearer and clearer. So in closing, the ingredients for accelerated cash flow per share compounding are coming together. Our portfolio is the strongest it has ever been. Our organizational velocity is accelerating.

AI is both TAM expanding and growth enabling, and we're excited to see our product work translate into higher growth. Our capital deployment capacity and flexibility are significant differentiators and our discipline is unchanged. This is how we compete and win and how we continue to compound for our shareholders. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Dylan Becker with William Blair.

Dylan Becker: Nice job here. Maybe, Neil, starting for you. I think it was clear in your commentary, you kind of talked about the accelerating pace of innovation and the right to win and TAM expansion -- kind of TAM expansive nature of AI. But if we think about kind of the embeddability piece and monetization of the platform, I guess, maybe how that layers in incremental conviction as well, too, right? Is that something that can lower friction around adoption? Is that something that can increase kind of the likelihood of success and value alignment with customers, but maybe how the platform positioning and embeddability of agents maybe layers in kind of incremental confidence in that right to win around agents?

Neil Hunn: Yes. I just want to -- so if you're asking about embeddability, I want to make sure you're a little muted on that. I want to make sure I'm answering the right question.

Dylan Becker: Yes. So the ability to kind of embedded it into the existing platform, right, and kind of the [indiscernible] value.

Neil Hunn: Yes. So a few things I'd start with on this. So it really starts with what sort of we talk about internally all the time about the AI, the product magic. We're able to create products now across many, if not all of our software businesses or when the customer sees in early betas and early trials like what the product can do, like their eyes sort of pop out of their head. It's like truly like a magical experience. [indiscernible] know software could do that, right? So that's what gets us like really excited. We just saw it last week, for instance, at the Vertafore Customer Conference, just sort of as an example.

So in terms of monetization, generally -- so that's one. I'll start there. Second is we believe that the right to win here is sort of on-stack AI embedded natively in workflows is a winning play, a huge incumbent advantage. So it is the second thing. Third thing, monetization, I think, for us is -- there's not going to be a one size fits all. There are some businesses today that already price on a consumption basis, think like SoftWriters and pharmacy automation or what Convoy does at DAT. So I think those will be monetized on a consumption basis. Also those customers' unit economics generally are driven on their own consumption, so it aligns with the customer unit economics.

I think more broadly, though, the monetization is going to be one that sort of, as you alluded to your question, balances adoption and long-term monetization. So I think that's going to not be largely consumption-based. Our customers very much are saying very clearly, they need to be able to plan for and budget what the spend is going to be. So it will likely be some sort of a subscription with an overage based on utilization of the AI tools. I think that aligns nicely with adoption because then the customers are going to be focused on how to realize the magic value, if you will, and not be worried every time they press a button, it costs money.

But then when that gets fully adopted and there's like deeply embedded in workflows, we'll be able to sort of grow with that utilization.

Jason Conley: I would just add that our CentralReach business is furthest along in this journey. They've been out in the market with AI products for 1.5 years or 2 years, and all of their AI is incremental. It's based on learners, which you could say is some form of consumption, right? It's not based on practitioners but learners, but that's been -- and customers are seeing real value, as Neil highlighted on the prepared remarks in terms of workflow efficiency and better revenue realization.

Dylan Becker: Very helpful. And maybe, Jason, kind of just sticking with you quickly as well, too. Obviously, kind of reiterating the full year revenue guide, 5% to 6% organic. We just did 6% this year. We've got some mechanics kind of layering in and easier comps in the back half as well, too. But maybe kind of just give us a broader sense of how the start of the year kind of layers in conviction and maybe that kind of conservative view that we continue to take to the guidance framework here going forward.

Jason Conley: Yes. Yes. Look, it's a strong start to the year, very encouraged by what we've seen. But we're just one quarter in. So we want to sort of see how things play out. As Neil talked about, we have a couple, like you said, mechanical things in the second quarter nonrecurring in AS will be a little bit more impacted than the first quarter. And then we're just -- in TEP, we're comping a high watermark in Q2, but that will ease off in the second half. And then as we've talked about, the second half will improve in software with Subsplash and CentralReach turning organic. And then we have just some easing comps in AS.

So all that just sort of blends into our sort of holding the range at this point, but we'll see how it plays out.

Operator: Your next question comes from Brent Thill with Jefferies.

Unknown Analyst: This is Leah on for Brent Thill. Neil, just curious to hear your thoughts on the private markets given ongoing volatility. Can you just tell us a little bit more about what you're seeing right now and if it's changed your outlook at all?

Neil Hunn: Talking about private markets on M&A? Talking about?

Unknown Analyst: Correct.

Neil Hunn: Yes, sure. So as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, it's definitely been with the public market drawdown. It's been -- it's gone from the busiest we've been in a long time to the least busy. We're still busy. We're still active. As I mentioned, it's more proprietary. It's certainly more targeted. But it's actually -- we think the M&A setup has actually improved a bit for us over the last 90 days in the context that the LP pressure that we've talked about now for a couple of years continues to exist. That does not change in any capacity. If anything, it's maybe increased over the course of the next 90 days.

The other thing that's happened that's been -- everybody is widely reported, people understand is now we got the private credit dynamic that also is putting pressure on the asset class. So for us, it's -- we think the combination of those 2 will likely service more quality assets in the processes, and we're a very advantaged buyer in that regard. But the timing is still to be determined. We're modeling out what these maturities look like on the private credit side. There's not a meaningful maturity cliff this year. But if you're a private equity sponsor seller, you want to think about divesting an asset well before maturity.

So that's something that [ Jen ] and her team are sort of lining up. So we think there's an opportunity here to get potentially, I should underscore potentially to acquire AA+ assets at differentiated values given the backdrop and the dynamics here. The timing of this is to be determined, but we'll stay active in process and prosecute the opportunities in front of us.

Jason Conley: Yes. And I would just reiterate, we refinanced our 5-year revolver this quarter at a very good cost of capital, sort of tightened up the spread a little bit. So shout out to Shannon and Dave Baker for getting that done this quarter. Just a great job there. And just positions us well. We have a lot of balance sheet flexibility, and we'll be able to move quickly when the opportunities arise.

Unknown Analyst: Got it. That's helpful. And then just on Deltek's government contracting business, did you see any impact in the quarter at all from the war in the Middle East? And is it having any impact on your outlook for the remainder of the year?

Neil Hunn: Yes. We asked that very specific question on our call down with Deltek. And the short answer is very little, if any. There certainly is a sliver of the sort of aerospace defense subsector of government contractors that are focused on munitions and sort of war efforts. So that's a small sliver of the population of the broader, I'd say, contractor population. So it had, if in effect, a minimally negative impact just in terms of those contractors are focused on the war efforts and not on contracting for ERP software, but it wasn't material in the quarter.

Operator: Your next question comes from Joseph Vruwink with Baird.

Joseph Vruwink: I think all Application Software is facing this question around whether AI-related spending grabs an outsized wallet share and maybe the incumbents get squeezed along the way. I think the interesting thing about Roper is you have exposure to markets like legal and health care. I think those are the 2 biggest vertical AI adopters so far. And then I think your respective software exposure there is still doing pretty well. What's your take on this topic? And have you seen any changes year-to-date as we've also seen the big ARR numbers come through from the frontier model providers that make you more concerned in coming quarters?

Neil Hunn: I would say we're -- the punchline on that, the TLDR is no. No impact on sort of the budget budgetary spend that we sort of compete for. I think the double-click on that is the obvious answer, which is -- and this is a personal opinion that I think a lot of these surveys around IT spend are a little misleading because the whole point of the AI effort is we get to go monetize labor spend. So it's about a whole different bucket of opportunity to capture and provide value to the end market.

In the particular -- in the -- across the whole platform, we're not seeing sort of an impact to us relative to allocation of budget, especially not in legal and health care as we talked about Aderant, which is amazing in the quarter. It's been an amazing few years here at Aderant.

Unknown Analyst: Great. That's helpful. And then I heard enterprise bookings up low double digits over the trailing 12 months. I'm curious what they were in the quarter? And I think your definition excludes price. Maybe can you just comment on pricing power in the aggregate?

Jason Conley: Yes. So it was certainly above the double digits. We had an easier Q1 comp last year. I think the TTM is definitely the right way to think about it. Yes. And then in terms of -- it does not include price, you're right. And prices held up very well. I think what we've said historically, we're very thoughtful across the portfolio about pricing, and you have to earn the right, and companies are doing that as part of our strategic plan work that we do is understanding that dynamic. And so we've continued to do that methodically over the last half decade or so.

Neil Hunn: Yes, I would -- the only thing I'd add on pricing in addition to what Jason said is we actually think relative to what the market will bear on pricing, we have underutilized that lever in growth. And so it's not like a pan portfolio [ go raise ] pricing. That's not how we operate at Roper. But as Jason said, it's like where you have earned the right with your product, your product value and your customer relationships to take a little bit more pricing then we are doing that. And -- but it's a very strategic. It's a very earned process.

And we would hope that we would see a little bit, I don't know if it's 50 or 100 basis points over the portfolio of software and pricing impact or increase over the next couple [ of 3 ] years.

Operator: Your next question comes from Terry Tillman with Truist.

Terrell Tillman: I wanted to build on the prior question on legal tech because, yes, it's in the media reports and some remarkable growth from some of these SaaS natives there. But I'm curious, though, Neil, you've called out Aderant, a couple of years of amazing. And it does seem like it's like clockwork showing up in the segment level slides every quarter on record this or that. How much more sustainability is there in terms of just the momentum in terms of getting folks to move to SaaS? And just can this train keep going just on the momentum with Aderant? And then I had a follow-up.

Neil Hunn: Sure. So it's -- Chris and the team there have done a great job. I mean I'll give you a little bit -- a longer answer here. Aderant has been really good for a very long time for us. But what's been happening underneath the hood has evolved to sort of keep it good. It started with how do we just -- how do we just take it to our competitor and outcompete them in the marketplace. And that's how we went from 35%, 40% market share in large law to 60%, 65%. We just absolutely compete in one, and Chris and his predecessor team did a wonderful job in that sort of era of growth.

Well, that era of growth we could see was going to end at some point, so we had to evolve. That's where we sort of said, okay, let's -- we have this installed base of customers, how do we sell them more things? And so we then prosecuted both an organic and inorganic strategy to add the number of bolt-on products that we could or sort of integrate in modules that we could sell to this large law customer base that made strategic sense. So we prosecuted -- are prosecuting that strategy. Then came along cloud, right? This was a constituency that did not want to move to the cloud and COVID happened.

So we rapidly cloud-enabled the totality of the product set. And then we're now in the -- still early innings, maybe third or fourth inning, maybe not even that late of moving this customer constituency to the cloud of that lift and shift. And now we have the tailwind of the AI benefit in terms of being able -- so there's -- it's a multiple growth driver story and I think there's quite a long way to go on this.

But part of the benefit of owning any business for the long arc of time is you're always looking out horizon 2 and horizon 3 for what you have to build either organically or inorganically to sustain or improved growth rates.

Terrell Tillman: Yes, that's very helpful. And the follow-up is just what we're seeing though is with particularly -- not necessarily generative agentic. I mean, that's a pretty big lift in shift in change management, customers being comfortable having things to go autonomous and even getting it beyond kind of the experimental space. So are you seeing with some of the businesses, you actually have to hire -- put in forward deployed engineers or kind of change how you go to market or help the customers and it does create some kind of incremental costs or just handholding? Just anything about how you help them consume this agentic stuff?

Neil Hunn: Yes, I think that's -- the short answer is yes. I think we mentioned last quarter that this year is going to be just a massive learning year for us across the enterprise on -- I'll put in like the commercialization bucket of these AI tools, of which FTEs are certainly a component. How do you position it? How do you sell it? How do you price it? How do you get it implemented? How do you get utilization pull-through? How do you drive renewal rates high? I mean that whole customer journey is going to be across the portfolio, a huge set of learnings for us.

We have -- I'll spare you the details on inside the portfolios, but we have portfolios where -- businesses where the uptake has just been very natural. We haven't had to have the 4 deployed engineers because when you press the magic button and you get productivity savings that immediately that productivity savings has taken in the customers' operation is something that they can go do tomorrow. In other cases, there's some trepidation. If I press this button, do I lose my job, and you've got to sort of go through the whole change management process of that. I think in almost every case, folks don't -- our customers, they don't lose -- it's not -- lose their job.

It's how do you sort of do task replacement, task augmentation and they can go play offense inside their customer to go compete and win. But it's certainly sort of an expect -- sort of something you have to overcome in that regard. So yes, we do expect across a certain part of the portfolio to do some version of a forward deployed engineer. Yes. Final thing I'd say on that is I think it's kind of from an investment point of view, it's probably more of a reallocation or rebalancing of investment from customer support, customer service to FTE. So I don't know if it's like a huge cost increase. It's just a resource allocation dynamic.

Operator: Your next question comes from Joe Giordano with TD Cowen.

Joseph Giordano: Just curious on your talk about like embeddability and subscription plus overage in the future. Like I get the view of like I don't want our customers to think every time they click a button and it cost them money. I fully get that. If these things become embedded and like the efficiencies potentially require less people at your customers, like how do you kind of judge the ROI of the investment necessary to kind of -- I say -- maybe not saying to kind of stay in the same place.

Like the product is getting better, but you're getting like the same kind of subscriptions and it's like costing you more to maybe achieve that now than it did in the past. So how do you kind of evaluate the ROI on the required spend to kind of get to that place?

Neil Hunn: Yes. I think it's -- so this is -- these are very hard dollar ROIs. I mean we've said publicly, for instance, at DAT Convoy to manually broker load, it's somewhere between $100 and $200 of labor to do that. You use our load automation, it's somewhere in the $40 range. So it's a demonstrable hard dollar ROI. Similar things can be said that, for instance, at Vertafore, one of the agentic tools they released last week. It's a reconciliation tool, the time and motion study is it's like 17 minutes per reconciliation. Our tool does it in 30 seconds. Then you do these like the scores of these a day.

So you can sort of see the time savings and then you can get to a financial ROI. So these are pretty hard ROI and products and that sales teams are taking that message to the market and the customer base.

Jason Conley: Yes. And I would just say that -- sorry, Joe, I would just say we're using local smaller language models, maybe even older versions. So you're not consuming a lot of tokens when you're doing this activity. So it's -- and you can continue to change the prompts to make it more efficient over time. And so we've even -- even at Vertafore, we've taken that cost of goods down meaningfully in a matter of weeks. So I think it's still very accretive from a margin perspective.

Joseph Giordano: Yes. That's kind of what I'm getting at more of the ROI from Roper standpoint. I get how -- I get the ROI from the customers. It's more like if we're spending money to develop new AI tools that are then embedded in the product that we're already offering, like how is the ROI on the increased investment do you need in 2026 versus the investment you needed in 2021 to get the same customer and keep the same customer happy.

Jason Conley: Well, and I would just say on the development front, I mean, we're seeing demonstrable efficiencies, right, with the frontier models itself. So we're getting a lot more output and a lot more road map to consume. So if you talk about just OpEx investment, we're not assuming -- we're assuming productivity, but we're taking that back into the road map. So I don't think it changes fundamentally our P&L structure and our margin profile.

Neil Hunn: Joe, apologies for missing the point -- the thrust of your question.

Operator: Your next question comes from George Kurosawa with Citi.

George Michael Kurosawa: On the AI strike team, led by Shane and [ Eddie ] that you put together, it sounded like they completed their listening tour last quarter and have now been put out into the field. It sounds like some really success at Vertafore. If you could just touch on how they ended up sort of stack ranking the opportunities that they see in front of them and then maybe the scope of their involvement and how much it's led to an improvement in Velocity?

Neil Hunn: Yes. So I'm delighted to double-click into that. So just to remind everybody sort of the 3 objectives of this AI, this Roper sort of accelerator team. One, and first and foremost, is to sort of coach and teach, right? This is about enablement of our 21 software companies to do what they've already learned on their own relative to AI and agentic development and then do it even better. So that's number one. Second is to partner shoulder to shoulder and build.

And then the third one is to, where appropriate, build sort of shared componentry that we can -- where we can share some common run time or routines on the AI front across the Roper companies where it makes sense. So that's sort of the goal and focus of this group. In terms of the -- where we're allocating the team, this is very much an executive leadership team focus. It is basically size of prize and impact is how we're sort of force ranking of this. In terms of Vertafore, it is one of our largest opportunities, if not the largest opportunity we have from an agentic automation point of view.

I think there was 6 or -- 6 agents released last week at their Accelerate conference. That is just the very, very beginning. The model that -- and then we -- this quarter, we'll sort of broaden that from one engagement with one business to be -- it's now 6 as the team grows and we have the now 5 additional businesses that are sort of in the early stages of partnering with. And the final thing is about speed. I mean, I think the unlock here is, at least, I think Amy and the team at Vertafore would agree is our team, the Roper team sort of partner -- very much partnered.

So you can imagine leadership resources in our team working hand-in-hand with engineers on the Vertafore team on how to do this AI development, one, because there's a little bit of art to this and not just science. Number two, there is a speed coefficient that our team brings given their history about sort of modern day, like current very contemporary practices of agentic development and just the pace. And then there's just good old-fashioned change management. How do you sort of break bottlenecks and barriers to go fast.

And we saw literally, I know it's sort of an overused term, but 10x kind of productivity gains partnering with Vertafore on some of this development in terms of speed and quality. So we're super encouraged. It's very early days. I don't want [ Shane and Eddie ] to hear this and think they've manifested fully. They've got a lot of work to do, but it could not have gone better, in my view, in the first 6 months.

George Michael Kurosawa: Okay. That's great to hear. And then I wanted to ask kind of more broadly, when you look across the portfolio, it seems like AI commercialization is in sort of different stages. You've got businesses like Aderant, CentralReach that seem to be resounding successes. When you -- others seem to be coming up right behind them. When you look across that landscape, any pattern matching in terms of why some of these businesses seem to be moving a little faster than others? Is it primarily customer-driven? Or what would you attribute the relative successes there to?

Neil Hunn: I think it is -- Jason, I'll give an opportunity if he wants to add anything. I think if there's a pattern match there, when you have -- there's 21 software companies in the business. And while we want everyone to be going as fast as they possibly can, you have an array of where people are in their maturity. And where we're most advanced, they're the ones that got after and we're able to sort of get the agentic SKUs into the just in development first into the market first. And sort of now the next wave of this -- we talk a lot about CentralReach and Aderant and Convoy and DAT, they're the tip of the spear.

Now we have like 10 or 12 companies, maybe couple more like just now just getting to market with real agentic magic SKUs versus like chatbots and embedded sort of GenAI search inside of existing products where the value unlock is. And so we can -- and we also think a little bit offline about sort of more deeper operational pattern recognition, but that's what I would say about the commercialization phase [indiscernible] you sort of had product ready first.

Jason Conley: That's right. Yes. And I think the benefit of being part of Roper, we set our [ President Summit ] a couple of months ago, and we did an AI sort of showcase for those that are further along. So it just helps with the learning acceleration. But I would agree with Neil, that it's those that embrace and saw a true customer problem early on and they got after it a little sooner, but others are coming up the curve very quickly.

Operator: Your next question comes from Clarke Jeffries with Piper Sandler.

Clarke Jeffries: I just wanted to follow up on the comments around ground to cloud conversions advancing meaningfully. I'd love to understand the impact of SaaS transitions broadly in the Application Software segment? Is that contributing points of growth today? You made the comment around 85% of the segment is in the mid-single-digit plus range in growth, while nonrecurring was essentially flat. So I just wanted to know if it's something that would be of increasing benefit or already playing out in that segment? And then one follow-up.

Jason Conley: Yes, happy to take the question. So just as you think about the percentage of products that are cloud-enabled, it's 2/3 or so today. So we have about $1 billion of maintenance. And we think that, that will convert over, say, the next 5 to 10 years or so, and that should convert at 2 to 2.5x lift from maintenance to SaaS. And so today, we're kind of -- if you think about the percentage that we have to go, we're sort of in the first or second inning of that journey. And so it does add, call it, 50 to 100 basis points of growth a year should for the next 5 to 10 years.

Neil Hunn: The only thing I'd add is we -- when we talked about this in the past, Clarke, we've also said we are very much pacing this ground-to-cloud conversion at our customers' pacing. We're not like forcing it to them. I'll say with the advent of AI, I should have mentioned earlier on the monetization, another monetization method for AI is embedding the AI sort of features in the cloud product. And that is a very compelling pull to make this transition go a little bit faster. So instead of 8 to 10 years, maybe it's 4 to 6. I don't know what the right number is, but we would expect to see that go a little bit faster.

The other thing is we made a tremendous amount of investment over the last 3 years getting product enabled that was because we're going to our customer pacing, there was an urgency to get products enabled and now we are extraordinarily product-enabled. So basically feature parity, if not more so in the cloud product than on-prem. So I think the setup here is a little bit better than it was a few years ago.

Jason Conley: Yes. And I would just say it's mostly -- and it's going to be Aderant is a little further along. As you know, power plants in the early innings, but definitely much more cloud-enabled today than they were. And then when you think about those are a little bit further behind, it's more health care, but that's our Clinisys business and labs. That's just kind of the nature of that end market. And so those -- so we see the areas of Aderant and [indiscernible] being those that will be more near term in terms of cloud migration.

Clarke Jeffries: Perfect. All makes sense. And then one thing that kind of stood out to me was the margin impact in the Application Software segment. The margin impact of businesses owned for less than 4 quarters was actually positive year-over-year. Just wanted to unpack that. Is that -- is the takeaway here that even the earlier-stage acquisitions last year are getting to margin parity quickly?

Jason Conley: So in Application Software, it's our CentralReach business, and that business is -- it's a very -- the business has ample R&D investment. I think R&D as a percent of revenue is like 20%, but they just have extremely strong incrementals. They're very cloud-native platform. And so as they expand, they have very good incrementals there. And when we talk about the acquisitions in our network software segment, we've talked about our -- the business Convoy that we added on to DAT. It's a technology investment. We're super committed to that investment to automate the spot freight market over time. So that actually has a drag on margins.

That plus our Subsplash business, which is a lower margin, faster-growing business that as they grow, they will scale margins. But you can see in our network segment, it does have a pretty meaningful drag on margins. Now over time, as Convoy continues to grow, that should be a tailwind as we go into the out years. But this year, it is a little bit of a drag on margin.

Operator: Your next question comes from Josh Tilton with Wolfe Research.

Joshua Tilton: And congrats on a really strong start to the year. I will keep it to one given the hour. But my question is just basically you're very clear that the guidance still doesn't assume a recovery at Deltek and DAT for the rest of the year. Can you just remind us the confidence that you have in the rest of the application network software business and kind of offsetting that weakness throughout the year?

Jason Conley: I'd say just to go through the segments. So that Application Software, we feel good about sort of what's going to happen in the second half. We just talked about CentralReach just having a set a really strong start under our ownership and a lot of that's recurring. And so that's just going to flow through in the second half. We've talked about being 80 basis points or so of accretion in the second half for that segment. We still feel good about that. And then in network, DAT is looking good in the first quarter. We'll see sort of how things play out. Foundry will continue to be sort of getting better throughout the year.

They had a great start to the year. And then some turns organic in the fourth quarter, and that's sure accretive to the segment. So yes, I feel good about the rest of the segment or the rest of the business.

Operator: Your next question comes from Ken Wong with Oppenheimer.

Hoi-Fung Wong: Just one for me. sounds like the kind of the downtick in 2Q is just purely due to tough comps, but just wanted to kind of make sure and clarify any geopolitical macro dynamics that you guys baked into that assumption as well, given kind of the current situation that arose?

Jason Conley: No, not at all. I mean this is just like timing really in the AS segment. It's our nonrecurring perpetual activity. And so that's squarely what it is. We have clear visibility to that. And then on in TEP, no, I think we're comping 9% quarter as a high watermark last year. So it's just sort of a comp in the second quarter in TEP. It will get better in the second half. So nothing geopolitical at all. We are mostly U.S., as you know. So we don't see anything in the Middle East.

Operator: Your next question comes from Julian Mitchell with Barclays.

Julian Mitchell: Maybe first off, I just wanted to try and put a finer point on the full year guidance. So is it fair to say that the sort of core EBITDA guide is essentially unchanged and it's really a kind of share count-driven guide? And maybe help us understand what the share count assumption is now at the sort of guidance midpoint. And I think the guide embeds has no extra buybacks beyond today. Just wanted to check that.

Jason Conley: That's correct. Yes. So we had about a couple of hundred million of share repurchase between the end of the quarter and today. And so I think as I mentioned, the ending share count for Q1 is 102.4 million and then you've got some, obviously, dilution to add on top of that. So that's what we're assuming. But yes, you're right, it's -- we've mainly flown through the first quarter beat and then the buyback activity for the balance of the year.

Neil Hunn: In the first quarter beat for us, Julian, was partially from our [indiscernible] operating and partially buyback.

Julian Mitchell: That's helpful. And within the network business, DAT has had a very tough sort of demand or macro backdrop and it's been executing well within that. Finally, the last 6 months, there's better signals in the freight markets in the U.S. maybe sort of flesh out a little bit more what you're seeing in that business? And sort of what's dialed in for that transport linked business in the U.S. for the balance of the year, please?

Neil Hunn: Yes. So as we mentioned in the call, we're not in the guide, there's not an assumption for improvement. Also, I'll just double-click a little bit on the prepared comments. So for the first time in -- look -- Jason, in a couple, 3 years, we've had carrier, the carrier count side of the network increased which is certainly a green shoot that we've been waiting quite a time. Now we've had some head [indiscernible] intra-quarter on that number in the past. And so we're going to remain cautious also the input costs or diesel costs certainly not helpful. So carrier margins or profitability would be a little bit challenging.

And so -- but we're cautiously optimistic that there might be a freight recovery rejection rates got better, the rates got better as we talked about, 20% or 30% better. So we'll see how it plays out, but we've underwritten no improvement in the outlook.

Operator: Your next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets.

Unknown Analyst: This is Kenny [indiscernible] on for Deane. I wanted to ask about Neptune business. So one of your peers have some meaningful project delays disruption in the quarter for their water meter business. Have you seen anything similar in terms of the industry dynamic or even any market share changes during the quarter?

Neil Hunn: Yes. I appreciate the question. So for us, on our Neptune business, we would say largely no. We've not seen a project -- any project delays. Now the backdrop on that is slightly different than the competitor you described. And Neptune plays in the segments that are on the smaller municipalities. So it's -- we have never had a large amount of project-based work, generally speaking. So it's really not an apples-to-apples sort of question. The other part of this is we had a pretty decent sort of short-cycle demand in the quarter. I think that's largely because we -- and I'm not commenting about our competitor because we don't know their business the way they do.

But we -- Neptune did a good job managing channel inventory in 2025. And so the hope or expectation is we'll be able to ship closer to retail in 2026 on the short cycle side, and I think we saw that play out at least early in the year in Q1.

Unknown Analyst: If I can have a follow-up. If you just if you could unpack the cost pressure dynamics for the Neptune business or even at the overall TAP segment level, either in the magnitude or the time line to offsetting those that will be helpful as we kind of think about the segment's incremental margins moving forward?

Neil Hunn: Sure. Let me -- I'll take a crack at this, but I definitely want to ask Jason to sort of correct and sort of amplify anything. So in Neptune, it's really the ingot cost. And what we decided to do, I think [ Don and the ] team did a very sort of wise thing here. We did -- if you remember, 3Q, really July of last year, we pushed the sort of, call it, tariff or a raw material sort of surcharge into the market. It really had a negative demand impact in the short run.

The signal from the customer was, hey, we certainly appreciate, we've got to onboard sort of global price inflation, but we'd rather do it through regular weight pricing versus surcharging. And so we will sort of -- we expect, by the way, a cost -- the baseline assumption we have is ingot cost is going to stay high. I mean, this is with all the data centers and just the demand for copper, this is a derivative impact to that. So our baseline assumption is this input cost is going to stay high for a while.

So it will just be corrected or the margin will be captured through regular way pricing, which takes a couple of quarters to sort of work through backlog and get into the market. So we're taking a longer view on that. In terms of the balance of the segment, it's really -- it's both Northern Digital and it's Verathon. These are businesses that are per our strategy for the market opportunity are becoming more reoccurring in nature, reoccurring consumables, which is a great thing about the predictability of growth and the absolute levels of growth in the businesses, but the consumables come with a lower GP percentage.

So GP dollars are going up, the GP percentages may be a little pressured on those 2 businesses. Now they also do a very good job managing below GP to EBITDA ROP, where we don't think there'll be a lot of OP compression over the long arc of time because they do have natural leverage in the business. Those are the mix at play. Jason, anything you want to amplify there?

Jason Conley: No, I think you have covered it. Thanks.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. We will now return back to Zack Moxcey for any closing remarks.

Zack Moxcey: Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you during our next earnings call.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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