Bruker (NASDAQ:BRKR) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.

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The full earnings call is available at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/778212417

Summary

Bruker's Q1 2026 financial performance exceeded expectations despite challenges in US academic demand, tariffs, and currency headwinds, with reported revenues of $823 million, a 2.7% increase year over year.

Strong demand was noted in AI-driven semiconductor metrology, European and Middle East security detection, and scientific software, contributing to a high single-digit organic growth in BSI bookings.

The company reconfirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, anticipating 4-5% reported revenue growth and 1-2% organic revenue growth, with significant margin expansion driven by cost-saving actions.

Operational highlights include over $600 million in multi-year orders for superconductors and positive momentum in spatial biology and clinical microbiology innovations.

Management expressed optimism about future growth, particularly in academic demand outside the US, and highlighted ongoing cost-cutting initiatives expected to improve margins further.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good day and welcome to The Bruker Corporation first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the Star key followed by zero. After today's presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question you may press Star key followed by one on a touch tone phone and to withdraw your question please press Star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Koska, Director of Bruker's Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Joe Koska (Director of Investor Relations)

Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to Bruker's Corporation's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. My name is Joe Koska and I'm the Director of Bruker's Investor Relations. Joining me on today's call are Frank Laukene, our President and CEO, and Gerald Herman, our EVP and CFO. In addition to the earnings release we issued earlier today, during today's conference call we will be referencing a slide presentation that can be downloaded from the Events and Presentations section of Bruker's's Investor Relations website. During today's call we will be highlighting non GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of our GAAP to non GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and are posted on our website at ir.bruker.com before we begin, I would like to reference Bruker's's Safe Harbor Statement which is shown on slide two of the presentation. During this conference call, we will or may make forward looking statements regarding future events in the financial and operational performance of the Company that involve risks and uncertainties, including those related to our recent acquisitions, geopolitical risks, wars or blockades, market demand tariffs, currency exchange rates, competitive dynamics or supply chains. The Company's actual results may differ materially from such statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in today's earnings release and in our Form 10K for the period ending December 31, 2025 as updated by our other SEC filings which are available on our website and on the SEC's website. Also, please note that the following information is based on current business conditions and our outlook as of today, May 6, 2026. We do not intend to update our forward looking statements based on new information, future events or for other reasons, except as may be required by law prior to the release of our second quarter 2026 financial results expected in early August 2026. You should not rely on these forward looking statements as necessarily representing our views or outlook as of any date after today. We will begin today's call with Frank providing an overview of our business progress. Gerald will then cover the financials for the first quarter of 2026 in more detail and comment on our reconfirmed full year 2026 financial outlook. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bruker's CEO Frank Laukene.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Thank you Joe. Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's first quarter 26 earnings call. While US academic demand, tariff and currency headwinds have continued to pressure our year over year results, we are pleased that our first quarter 26 financial performance came in well ahead of expectations. We are also encouraged that in the first quarter our Bruker Scientific Instrument segment or Bruker Scientific Instruments (BSI) bookings grew organically in the high single digits. We saw strength in industrial research orders and encouraging double digit bookings growth year over year in academic orders from outside the United States. This demonstrates, we think that our novel and performance leading post genomic disease biology research solutions are truly enabling and that we can expect momentum in US ICHgov demand once the NIH funding environment improves. In the first quarter we benefited from strong demand in a few areas more unique to Bruker as our AI driven semiconductor metrology business and our similarly AI driven SCI wide scientific software and lab digitization businesses as well as our European Middle east security detection business. Also organic bookings growth of greater than 20% in the quarter. Let me give you a little bit more color order strength in semi metrology, which is now a greater than 300 million annual revenue business for Bruker, was driven by AI demand for memory chips and for advanced packaging, particularly in the US and in apec. Many of the world's top semiconductor manufacturers rely on broker metrology tools for front end and back end applications including development for their next generation products. The rapidly increasing need for computing power and emerging applications for artificial intelligence provides strong secular tailwinds in semi metrology, another area that may have been less visible to you so far. Another area of our portfolio benefiting from the AI megatrend is SCI Y which is now about a 50 million revenue business. SCI Y offers lab digitization and scientific software going from research through development all the way to manufacturing and enabling integration, automation and digital transformation. These SCI Y AI solutions facilitate the capture, ingestion and standardization of data so that it is AI ready, alleviating bottlenecks in the digital transformation that is revolutionizing scientific research and paves the path to so called self driving labs or Self-Driving Labs (STL) which can accelerate R and D quality control and also chemical and biomolecular manufacturing. In another area, our security detection business, we are seeing significant demand for our explosive strace detection systems from airports in Europe and the Middle east as well as for CBRN detection solutions. Our security detection business has grown from a niche business a few years ago to about 70 million in revenue expected this year. Finally, we are delighted in the turnaround in our Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) segment where we have obtained in the first quarter about 80 million of multi year orders for our research instruments subsidiary Fusion Technologies Fusion Energy and In the last five months December through April about 600 million of multi year orders for our high performance superconductors from major MResearch Instruments (RI) customers. So all good at Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST). So strong academic demand for our post genomic solutions outside of the US and these mentioned areas of idiosyncratic strength were contributors to our Bruker Scientific Instruments (BSI) book to bill ratio which in Q1 was again comfortably above 1.0 now the third consecutive quarter. This encouraging momentum is expected to carry us back to organic revenue growth in the second quarter and for the remainder of the year. Very importantly, Bruker's innovation engine has been quite impressive we think this year already and we have introduced very impactful new products and solutions at recent scientific and medical conferences. These launches further strengthen our leadership position in nmr. I think we are clearly leading the way in multiomic high fidelity and high flex spatial biology and we also bringing major innovations to clinical microbiology and molecular diagnostics. So let's dig in. Let's turn to slide 4 now for the P and L performance of the business. Our Q1 reported revenues of 823 million increased 2.7% year over year. An FX tailwind of 4.5 and a growth contribution from MA of 2.6% more than offset an organic decline of 4.4%. Bruker Scientific Instruments (BSI) segment revenues were down 5% organically while Best saw organic revenue growth of 3% net of intercompany eliminations, our 1Q26 non GAAP growth and operating margins were 50% and 10.2% respectively, both down year over year and both inclusive of significant headwinds from foreign currency trends year over year, but also both ahead of expectations. Our Q1 26 diluted non GAAP EPS was $0.31, down from $0.47 in 1Q25 but meaningfully ahead of our prior expectations. Please turn to slides 5 and 6 where we highlight the first quarter constant exchange rate or CER revenue and bookings performance of our 3 scientific instruments groups and our Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) segment year over year. In the first quarter BioSpin Group revenue was 198 million with a CER decline in the high single digits. Percentage revenue growth in preclinical imaging systems, Cywai software and our services business were more than offset by weakness in NMR systems due to soft Acagov performance in China and Europe. In the first quarter BioSpin installed the world's highest field preclinical MResearch Instruments (RI) system, an 18 Tesla preclinical system at the Champalimo Institute in Lisbon, Portugal. However, Biosmin saw a headwind to revenue growth from the 1.2 GHz NMR installed in 1Q25 as there were no gigahertz class systems in Q1 of 26, right. In Q1 our Kalli group had revenues of 316 million with mid single digit percentage CER growth. CALEC growth was led by molecular spectroscopy which also saw strength in security detection orders. Microbiology and infection diagnostics had solid revenue growth and in life science mass spectrometry contributions from our recent M and A more than offset revenue software in US EchoGov. Encouragingly, life science mass spec orders growth in the US EchoGov was positive in Q1 year over year, so perhaps it is stabilizing. Of course we'd like it to come back and rebound, but maybe that'll happen in the next couple of quarters. Turning to Slide 6 now in Q1 Brooker Nano revenue was 246 million with CER revenue declining mid single digits. Percentage strong revenue growth in Semi Metrology was more than offset by weakness in AKAGOV and industrial markets. Nano had strong orders across the group including tools for X ray industrial research, spatial biology, high bandwidth memory and advanced packaging metrology, all driven by AI. Finally, first quarter Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) CER revenues grew 3% net of intercompany eliminations driven by our superconducting wire business research instruments Research Instruments (RI). That business saw very strong orders in Q1 as I said earlier from Fusion and Best received very large multi year superconductor orders in the last five months from all three major MResearch Instruments (RI) OEM customers. Moving on to slide seven the next three slides. I will not read everything, but I'll give you a highlight. We had a pretty significant NMR innovations at the Experimental NMR Conference in Asilomar in 2026 for research and pharma markets. A lot of it is software, a lot of it is AI driven, making protein nmr really much easier. In the past I think protein NMR had a disadvantage compared to cryo EM or X ray crystallography in that it required more expertise. But that's really pretty changing pretty rapidly and AI with its unique abilities to get dynamic and binding information is becoming much much more accessible. There are some other innovations from extreme new sensitivities that enable new fields shown on the right to just a good old next generation NMR console, the advanced NEO X which we think will unlock a replacement cycle. Moving to slide 8 at AGBT and then following AACR I really think Bruker is clearly leading the way in spatial biology for capturing complexity of disease biology and integrating it from well even 3D genomics with a very unique painscape system that we launched to the cosmic system which is upgradable for our customers and which of course were already a year ago we showed multi omic whole human transcriptome, we've added now a whole mouse transcriptome, we're doing T cell receptors, microrna and most importantly or very importantly I would say we have added High-plex proteomics. That combination of whole transcriptome and high plex proteomics is really very very powerful and readily adopted by comprehensive pathways for better LLMs or just for better disease biology. We think that continues to be very unique enough on that slide. Let me talk about clinical microbiology in slide 9. We had another conference crucial conference, the Global ESMID conference which stands for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease in Munich we introduced our new Mygenius Pro higher throughput system sample to answer higher throughput system for all the markets that we drive from Bruker Elitec and delightfully this is also the system that Hitachi is introducing in Japan using our molecular diagnostic assays. It's very an important development. Meanwhile we have many many introductions, too many to specify in the multi biotyper workflow and identification and even hospital acquired using the IR biotyper. I won't go through it. This is more for your reading if you are interested but significant innovation in microbiology typically a state area of diagnostics, right? So in summary, good execution, disciplined management by our teams drove up drove us to outperform our expectations in the first quarter order trends are improving including in unique areas of our diversified portfolio and we're optimistic that improved organic growth will follow. Importantly, we're very committed to controlling and reducing costs which is crucial to improving our margin profile rapidly. Benefits from our cost out plans and broker management process will be explained by Gerald but are now clearly evident in our P and L and we're further expanding these cost cutting initiatives as Gerald will discuss shortly, keeping us on track not only for significant margin expansion and strong EPS growth this year, but also into next year and beyond. Given the dynamic macro, shall we say, and geopolitical environment, we believe it is prudent for now to confirm our prior 26 guidance. The outperformance in Q1 has been encouraging, an encouraging start to the year and it provides us with improved visibility and confidence and we look to build on that momentum in the second quarter. So with that, let me turn things over to our cfo, Gerald Herman.

Gerald Herman (Chief Financial Officer)

Go ahead. Thanks very much Frank and thank you everyone for joining us today. I'm pleased to provide More detail on Bruker's first quarter 2026 financial performance starting on slide 11. Despite significant macro and foreign exchange headwinds in the quarter, we delivered financial performance ahead of expectations we outlined in our earnings call in February. The first quarter 26 reported revenue increased 2.7% to $823.4 million which reflects an organic revenue decrease of 4.4% year over year, well ahead of our original expectations. Acquisitions added 2.6% to our top line and foreign exchange was 4.5% revenue tailwind. The highlight of the quarter was our strong bookings performance with BSI segment organic bookings up high single digits and bookings growth across all groups. We saw order strength in academic government research excluding the US in industrial and semi end markets and geographically in Europe and the rest of the APAC region with marked order improvement also seen in China. Back to revenue for the quarter geographically and on a year over year organic basis. In 1Q26 our Americas and European revenue both declined in the low single digits percentage while Asia Pacific revenue declined in the low double digits percentage driven by a greater 20% decline in revenue performance for China. In our ANEA region revenue was up low single digit percentage. From an end market perspective we saw organic revenue growth in semi biopharma and hospital clinical markets more than offset by double digit declines in academic, government, research and industrial markets. Within the BSI segment systems, revenue declined in the low double digit percentage and and aftermarket revenue grew in the high single digits percentage organically year over year. Q1 2026 non GAAP gross margin decreased 130 basis points to 50%. Non GAAP operating margin was 10.2%, a decrease of 250 basis points year over year. The decrease reflects headwinds of 350 basis points from lower volume and an unfavorable mix 170 basis points from foreign exchange and 30 basis points from tariffs. These headwinds were partially offset by a 300 basis point benefit from our cost saving actions taken in fiscal year 25 now helping our performance in fiscal year 26 on a go forward basis. We expect the year over year foreign exchange and tariff headwinds on margins to ease as we lap the introduction of U.S. tariffs and the significant depreciation of the U.S. dollar which occurred in the second quarter of 2025. On a non GAAP basis, Q1.26 diluted EPS was $0.31 down from $0.47 in Q1 of 25. Our non GAAP EPS performance includes a foreign exchange headwind of $0.05 and a $0.05 impact from the Management Change Program (MCP) offering we completed in September 2025. Net of interest cost savings on a GAAP basis, we reported diluted EPS of $0.02 compared to $0.11 in the first quarter of 2025, with the decline mostly due to lease impairment and restructuring charges related to our cost saving actions. Beyond the 100 to $120 million in annualized cost saving targets that we announced, we're now tracking around $140 million in expected savings on an annualized basis. We cleared most European labor hurdles in the first quarter and expect to see the majority of savings reflected in our second quarter and second half results in fiscal year 26 and beyond. Weighted average diluted shares outstanding in the first quarter of 2026 were 1.52.7 million, an increase of 800,000 shares or 0.5% from the first quarter of 2025. Turning now to Slide 12 we generated $71 million of operating cash flow in the first quarter 26 up slightly compared to the prior year. Capital expenditure investments were 24 million, resulting in free cash flow of $47 million for the quarter, an improvement of $8 million year over year. We finished the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of approximately $133 million. During the quarter we continued our delevering actions with $180 million debt paydown, eliminating a Swiss franc based term loan. At the end of the first quarter, our net leverage ratio declined to 2.9 times. Turning now to Slide 14, we are reconfirming our full year 26 outlook using the stronger execution in the first quarter to substantially de risk the second half ramp in growth margins and EPS. Therefore, we're reconfirming the following guidance. Reported revenue of 3.57 to $3.60 billion representing reported growth of 4 to 5% compared to fiscal year 25 organic revenue growth of 1 to 2% year over year, with acquisitions contributing 1.5% and an estimated foreign exchange tailwind of also 1.5%. We continue to expect organic non GAAP operating margin expansion of 300 to 350 basis points, largely driven by our cost saving actions, offset partially by approximately 50 basis points of foreign exchange headwind and resulting in a non GAAP operating margin expansion of 250 to 300 basis points compared to the 12.6% operating margin posted in fiscal year 25. On the bottom line, we continue to expect non GAAP EPS for fiscal year 26 in a range of 210 to 215 or non GAAP EPS growth of 15% to 17% compared to fiscal year 25. We're estimating a foreign exchange headwind of 8% to fiscal year 26 EPS, implying non GAAP CEREPs growth of 23 to 25% year over year. Other guidance assumptions are listed on the slide. Our fiscal year 26 ranges have been updated for foreign currency rates as of March 31, 2026. Now to add a bit of color to the second quarter of 2026, we've now delivered three consecutive quarters with the BSI book to bill over one and expect to return to organic revenue growth in the second quarter. We estimate second quarter organic revenue growth to be in the low to mid single digits percentage year over year with the easing of tariffs and foreign exchange headwinds we experienced in 2Q25. In the 2Q26, we expect a meaningful year over year step up in non GAAP operating margin and non GAAP EPS, with continued improvements in both metrics expected in the second half of the year. To wrap up Bruker's first quarter 26 results were pressured by macro and market headwinds, but our teams executed very well to deliver results ahead of our expectations. Coupled with continued momentum in our order book, this gives us further confidence in our ability to deliver solid financial improvements for the remainder of the year and beyond. With that, I'd like to turn the call back to Joe. Thank you very much.

Joe Koska (Director of Investor Relations)

Thanks Gerald. We'll now begin the Q and A portion of the call. As a reminder to allow everyone time for questions, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow up Operator.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star then two at this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question is from Puneet Sudha with Lee Rink Partners. Please go ahead. Excuse me, we do not hear a question.

Michael Ricekin (Equity Analyst at Bank of America)

Yes, I'm sorry, I put Michael Ricekin on the, on the podium with bank of America. Puneet will be next. Great. Sure, I'll take that. Thanks operator. Thanks. Thanks Frank. Congrats on the quarter and appreciate all that commentary. I want to start with some of your comments on demand trend though us you talked about Academic Market Growth (AMG) being a little bit better outside the United States (OUS). You know, the US weakness is not surprising. We don't have any additional color you can provide on sort of how sustainable that is. You know, you've got good visibility into order trends. Just you know, do you think that could persist going forward? And especially you know, your comments on China and Europe. Thanks.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Hi Mike. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for your comments. I think the order growth in Q1 outside of the United States and ICHgov was particularly high. That's probably not sustainable, but it's healthy, you know, it's quite healthy and also shows that, you know, even with incremental growth in ECHEGV budgets outside of the United States that our tools are very much in demand and are a high priority. So people really want the proteomics, metabolomics, multiomics, very differentiated tools, the second generation Proteoform tools, functional proteomics tools with the tim's Omni is in very much in demand. I think it's ushering a new era in proteomics and yeah, we're leading the way in Spatial Biology and good old nmr. NMR and related techniques are just very powerful and becoming less, you know, less the domain of just experts becoming via AI, quite honestly becoming more accessible, namely the results and the insights, not necessarily how to run the spectrometer. So it's good trends and I think it shows that we're not just going with a macro Academic and Government (A&G) trends but I think that we're hopefully have a right to win as it's sometimes called with you know, particularly relevant tools that are truly enabling. So, so I think it's a good indicator. I wouldn't quite take the outside the United States (OUS) Q1 order rate and extrapolate from that because that was, you know. But I think we can look at high single digit growth in these types of orders and I'm more optimistic than IH funding and funding disbursement will come back now in Q2 and maybe that makes for good Q3 orders. We shall see.

Michael Ricekin (Equity Analyst at Bank of America)

Okay, that's helpful. And then maybe for my follow Up. The other point that I thought was really interesting was some of your commentary on some of these really niche broker specific end markets or applications. We were benefiting from some of the more recent macro disruptions, security, defense, things like that. You call out a couple of those. I was just wondering any way you could kind of aggregate that sort of what percent of your portfolio in industrial is exposed to some of those, some of those end markets where you could, you know, you're seeing a 20% growth now, you know, like you said, a bunch of those might be 50 million, 70 million of revenue. So on the one off, it's things that can kind of slip under the radar, but you want them all together. That can be a nice little offset to, you know, what's going on in Ang and pharma.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Yeah, it's well above 10%, right? We haven't done that. But yeah, a quick math would show that it's, you know, 10 greater than 12%. And there are some others of these, you know, street loves to call them unique growth drivers. Yes, we have them too and we will do that. So it's clearly quite a, it's moving the needle. It's more than 10, 12%. But we'll aggregate that at some point. I don't have it at my fingertips.

Michael Ricekin (Equity Analyst at Bank of America)

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Next, we have a question from Puneet with Lee Rink Partners. Please go ahead.

Puneet Sudha (Equity Analyst at Lee Rink Partners)

Hi Frank, thanks for the questions here. So first one, actually maybe for Gerald on the margin side, could you elaborate a little bit on the second half ramp? It is, I mean first of all, congrats on the quarter, but just it is steep still. Could you maybe talk a little bit about, you know, in terms of overall, is it just organic growth recovery or are you expecting more from the cost initiatives? Maybe just give us the puts and takes given the ramp here.

Gerald Herman (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so. Hi Puneet, it's Gerald. I think generally speaking we are expecting continued improvement in the overall revenue performance sequentially as we march through 2026. Our operating margin performance is very strongly driven by our cost saving actions. And you've already heard me describe those in my prepared remarks. We're expecting 300 to 350 basis points of organic improvement. That gets better as we move through the year starting in the second quarter because of some of the headwinds that I mentioned on foreign exchange and tariffs get dissipated in the second quarter. But more fundamentally, as we march through the third and the fourth quarter, we expect to see stronger operating margin performance, mostly driven by improved market conditions. As you Just heard about our order performance and of course the cost saving actions.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Got it. And Frank driver of the cost savings this year. Punish. Yeah, got it. So maybe just Frank, on, just on spatial and artificial intelligence (AI), two areas I just want to touch on maybe on artificial intelligence (AI). Can you provide what level of visibility you have, the customers, your confidence in continuing to grow that here in 26 and then 27? Or is it just something that we should just observe the sort of the artificial intelligence (AI) demand and the broader macro. And on the spatial side there was an instrumentation launch in the market. Just wondering how are you thinking about potentially freezing of the market this year and then longer term demand for nanostring products there. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Yeah. So the AI trend and that of course always included logic and next generation logic chips and GPU and other that that's been strong all along. Advanced packaging continues to be very strong and, and it's also not only one company anymore, there are now some other companies that are now also really benefiting from that. And then really the big step up more recently as you've all read, of course, and we're benefiting from that is in high bandwidth memory and of course again advanced packaging for including all of that. So that's an additional boost that looks quite durable. I mean, you know, I don't think that was a lucky quarter or two or three. I think that looks like a very durable trend. And we're, we're built into that supply chain with our semiconductor metrology tools and even our RI tools that are now also north of 25 million a year. They go into the lithography, the extreme UV via the Zeiss ASML supply chain. So there's an additional driver that's now becoming significant. So these are strong trends on the sci wise side, the lab digitization and not just for our instruments, for other instruments and just about all the data in the lab and then the scientific software to do something with that, the fair reporting principles, these are very strong drivers primarily in biopharma, but also in other industries and even some academic customers are benefiting from this. But it's primarily driven by biopharma. Again a very high priority for all of them. When you sometimes the street worries about well are they still buying instruments with all this AI? Yes, they're buying instruments, but boy are they investing in software and digitalization and projects to get their laps, not only R and D but QC and QC accompanying the transition to manufacturing and then scale up. These are very strong trends. I think that business will continue to grow very rapidly. Spatial biology, it was remarkable to Read that someone invented what we did a year ago. But anyway, not to be too cagey here, I think it's a confirmation of what we've been driving this whole genome, whole human genome now, whole mouse genome transcriptomics. But we're still very much ahead of that with additional transcriptomes with we're actually delivering this stuff. This isn't just all promised for later this year. We've been delivering it since last year. And very importantly, we have the high plex or fairly high plex proteins, which really makes pathway analysis so much more powerful. So I feel really good about us leading the way and really benefiting from the new trends in spatial biology. And so, yeah, let's. We'll leave it at that. Got it. Okay, thank you. The next question is from Tico Peterson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Tico Peterson (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)

Thanks, Frank. Just to circle back on the semi comments, so you had to push out 40 million last quarter. Did you recapture that in this quarter? And the original guide, I think for the year in semi was low single digit. Maybe just given what you're seeing in the order book, talk a little bit about how you feel about that as a bogey for the year.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

I don't have all the details at my fingertips. I think we recaptured only some of that in Q1. Some of that has to do also with customer site availability. And as you know, in that industry, you deliver precisely when they want it, not when you have it ready. So I don't think it's completely captured, but some of it went into Q1. So I don't have a really crisp answer for you, but the answer is some and not all and for the

Tico Peterson (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)

full year is low single digits. Still, what you're thinking on semi,

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

on the revenue. I need some help from my team here. I don't have that at my fingertips. We may be able to get back to you on that during the call. Someone's nodding. So the answer seems to be yes. Yes.

Tico Peterson (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)

Awesome. Maybe just us academic. Frank, your comment, you know, you kind of let it slip. You thought it could pick up in 2Q potentially. I'm just curious what you're seeing out there. You know, how have expectations changed since February? What gives you that kind of confidence? We'll. We'll see it maybe sooner rather than later.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Well, it certainly seems to have bottomed out or stabilized now. You know, we want more than that. And yes, in a few weeks ago

Tico Peterson (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)

we got news that a lot of or the number of our, you know, applicants, especially from nih, got emails. Not only did they have a good score, but that they would probably get funded, that the checks did not come immediately or the money transfers. But now I read in some of the industry reports, right from you and others that also disbursements are now going up sequentially at least. And you know, we know what the budget is. We know how little has been spent so far. In a way, we're doing the math that everybody else is doing. And when you go to conferences, it's, you know, people aren't bullish. But us academic conferences, but they expect this to stabilize somewhat and maybe also there's still political uncertainty for sure. And it's not, you know, I expect it will pick up from obviously, and I think we've bottomed in. I'm somewhat optimistic that there will be a fair amount of funding between now and the end of the end of the government fiscal year and the end of September, and perhaps that will relate to good Q2 or Q3 orders. And some of that will go into Q4 orders. If money's released in Q3 calendar Q3, some of that will go into Q 4 orders. So we're, you know, we're far from, we're not bullish on that, but we think it's stabilizing and poised to pick up a little bit. And you know, we have many other areas of strength. So for this year, we're not banking on that. Most of that will then go into next year's revenue for us anyway. But we're expecting a gradual, an improvement and for us, good orders and from US academia, wouldn't that be nice in the second half of this year? But we're not building that into our guidance so we can deliver, we think our guidance, with or without that, if it comes, it's going to be actually upside. Okay, that's helpful. And then just quickly for Gerald, can you give us a 2Q margin target? I don't think we got that. And should we assume B2B, you know, holds above 1 for QQ?

Gerald Herman (Chief Financial Officer)

To answer your last question, yes. And on your earlier question, we mentioned in my script the low to mid single digits organic revenue growth color for the second quarter, 26 and a significant margin pickup. Yeah, but we didn't give any numbers. We didn't give any ranges. Yes.

OPERATOR

Right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Tanko. The next question is from Brandon Coulard with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Gerald Herman (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks. Good morning, Frank. Be great to get some color on China. I think you mentioned revenues were down over 20%, but Gerald kind of alluded to a market improvement in orders. Just unpack what you're seeing across the end markets there and whether that's maybe starting to pick up a bit. Brendan, it's Gerald, I'll just take that one quickly. Yeah, we, we did have a significant drop in overall revenue in the first quarter but that's largely driven by weaker order demand in the prior year. So we think that's just played out with respect to the first quarter order performance in China. It was, it was solid, I guess I'd say now again we're, we're coming off of relatively softer comps but still very encouraging in China to see some improvement order, order basis in the first quarter.

Brandon Coulard (Equity Analyst at Wells Fargo)

And Frank, you care to touch on the BioSpan leadership given Falco's departure recently? He's been there a long time and you know, leadership at BSI has been immutable the past decade. Just curious if you have any more color. Thanks.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Yeah, that's right. By the way, on China, I wanted to add because of some news yesterday, some of the diagnostic businesses of other companies are under pressure reimbursement or competitive or otherwise in China. Most of our diagnostics businesses, we have very, very little exposure there which is primarily focused on Europe, the U.S. and you know, the rest of the world ex China. So we don't have, that's the headwind we don't have for once Bruker Bruker BioSpin leadership. Yeah, Falco indeed has effectively left but I think he has seen us several months where that he's still nominally with us but we're stepped with other people into the leadership and I'm taking the opportunity to reorganize that a little bit including the group structures and we'll probably give you a better idea of the new group structures by middle of July but that's, I think it's on a very good path and I think you'll actually have a, a team with even more closeness to customers and very impactful. Not just innovation for innovation's sake, but very impactful innovation, very customer driven, cost effective, but also I think very accountable. So I'm actually pretty pleased in what we're doing at Bruker Bruker BioSpin but more in July,

OPERATOR

thanks. The next question is from Doug Schenkel with Wolff Research. Please go ahead.

Doug Schenkel (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research)

Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. I want to follow up on one of Tycho's questions in Q2. The year over year comparison is the most favorable of the year. In previous conversations with you we got the sense that you were expecting better than low single digit to mid single digit organic growth. So with those Two observations in mind. Was there any pull forward of revenue into Q1 at the expense of Q2? And are you still expecting Q2 to be the highest organic growth quarter of the year?

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

So, very discerning question. I don't think we have a lot of pull forward. I mean, maybe, you know, there's quarterly fluctuations and some things move back and forth. That's why we didn't call it out. But maybe there was something like 8 to 10 million and one could argue was pulled forward into Q1, but it's not particularly material and it also tends to be what's typical between quarters. That's not an unusual number. And to your second point, mathematically, yes, that looks like, looks to be correct that the. As we see it right now, the cadence is indeed that the organic revenue growth in Q2 would probably be the highest of the year. We'll see about that. But that's how it lined up initially and that's how it still looks. Correct. And yes, some of that has to do with a weaker Q2 of 25, as you. Exactly as you pinpointed.

Doug Schenkel (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research)

Okay, thank you for all that, Frank. And then I don't know if this is a Frank or a Gerald question. You know, I think, you know, some of the unfortunate developments in the world and the ongoing uncertainty, you know, I guess the good, the silver lining is some of that leads to increased demand for Bruker products and services. On the flip side, you know, obviously there's an increase in freight and input costs. Keeping in mind you did not change your guidance for the year, the 250 to 300 basis points of margin expansion. Does that suggest that you have fully captured and feel very comfortable that, you know, within that range, within that target, that you will be able to overcome any freight, input or related costs?

Gerald Herman (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, Doug, it's, it's a fair question. The short answer is yes. We think that we have built into the guide the variability associated with related energy costs and we think moderate increases will be absorbed through our, the elements that we've already laid out. So we're comfortable with where we are.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

As you've noticed, we have not increased guidance. You know, we have not taken the Q1 data, part of it to guidance. We just want to have more confidence, even more confidence in our guidance and maybe want you all to have more confidence in our guidance. And you know, we are expanding our cost cutting and it's of course intended to make sure that we continue on our significant margin ramp also into 27. But you know, some of that is also I Guess a cushion in case. Well or in what we now see there is increasing freight cost, there is increasing helium cost and things like that. So yeah, we think we've got it baked in. But that's also why we, why we kept our guidance as well as is for now.

Doug Schenkel (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research)

Okay, understood. Thank you very much.

OPERATOR

The next question is from Subu Nambi with Guggenheim. Please go ahead. Hey guys, thank you for taking my questions. Good morning. Could you walk us through, could you walk us through some of the other end market assumptions Besides academia for second quarter and how that will step up for, for 3Q and any puts and takes there?

Subu Nambi (Equity Analyst at Guggenheim)

With respect to the guide, we don't provide a lot of detail on the end market elements. Subu. What we can say is we are continuing to expect strength in ACAGOV Outside the U.S. we're continuing to expect strength in certain industrial markets and in the. Excuse me, in the semi space for sure those would be some of the core elements.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

But I would add to that that I think the clinical microbiology and molecular diagnostics business will do well. Their placements, if you recall, for the Bruker Elitech molecular diagnostics last year were something like more than 30% higher than our business plan, which bodes well for consumables all through the following year. And Q1 again has been just excellent with placements something like 40% ahead of plan. That doesn't show up in the P and L. Right. Initially that's a capex if you like, because these are reagent rentals. But it very much then has a buildup of consumables that comes after it. So those are some of the things that you will want to keep an eye on, plus the other things that we discussed.

Subu Nambi (Equity Analyst at Guggenheim)

That's helpful. And my follow up, sort of follow up to Doug's question from the Middle east conflict, would you expect additional tailwinds to the defense business? And at what point does that become an upside to the current guide based on what your starting assumptions are that you had at the beginning of this year?

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Yeah, remember our stuff doesn't shoot, it measures. So it's. But nonetheless, detection of course is important and people are concerned about things that, you know, happen behind the lines and all. So yeah, I mean it's already kind of obviously because of Ukraine and, but not only the country of Ukraine, but many other European countries thinking we don't want to become the next Ukraine. So they are investing in detection capabilities. And our detection business over two or three years has essentially doubled to where it's now meaningful. And yeah, that has helped the origins and I expect that to continue. I don't think it will affect guidance this year. It's just one of the. It's just one of the good guys on our list of things, you know, that are helping us meet and perhaps exceed guidance. I don't think it's gonna make a. If there are bigger orders, they tend to be long term. If you get another big order at some point this year, it's gonna go into 27 and sometimes 27, 28 revenue. These things are not turning quickly. Hopefully that helps.

OPERATOR

The next person in the queue is Casey Woodring with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Casey Woodring (Equity Analyst at JP Morgan)

Great. Thank you for taking our questions. I want to follow up on some of the margin ramp questions and just ask about mix dynamics. Curious to hear what mix impact was on the 1Q margin. And then, you know, how much of a mixed tailwind do you need to see to hit that second half margin? Step up and your visibility into that. And then just to follow up to that piece, you know, I wanted to just clarify on the cost outs. Is the 140 million in expected annualized savings, is that expected to hit by year end this year? Thanks.

Gerald Herman (Chief Financial Officer)

Okay, I'll start in the reverse order on the $140 million of annualized savings in. What you're going to see is those pieces will be fed into the quarters as we move forward. So you will not see the full 140 million for sure in the P and L by the end of the year. But as we march into 27, you'll start to see the impact of that for sure. With respect to the mix question, I would say just generally in Q1 we did have somewhat of unfavorable mix in the quarter, mostly driven by the gigahertz class item that was not in Q1 of 26, but was in Q1 of 20. Our expectation is that, you know, the mix situation will actually improve as we march through the rest of 2026. We've had a couple of quarters of more challenging mix issues and we're expecting to see that improve as we move through the rest of the year. And then I think I said earlier, I think with respect to the operating margin performance of the company we're doing, we've taken significant cost saving actions which are basically going to secure, we think the operating margin performance of the of the business not only in 26, but beyond that. And we expect to see those that ramp of operating margin improvement as we step sequentially through the second, third and fourth quarters. Hopefully that's helpful.

Casey Woodring (Equity Analyst at JP Morgan)

Yeah, no, thank you for that. And then just a quick follow up on best. You talked about the major orders coming through on the MRI side up to $600 million. Now, can you talk a little bit about how incremental those orders really are? I believe some of those are with existing customers. So it'd just be curious to hear any thoughts on that and would also be curious to hear what the lead time is for those orders and you know, if it's safe to assume those would start to contribute maybe in 1H27 or if there's any possibility that happens in 26. Thank you.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

So they're not incremental. They're not all incremental, but they offer maybe a period of uncertainty and some organic decline, moderate organic decline. It being best being a headwind last year, we think this year, sorry, it's already going to be a tailwind. Sorry. Some of these orders are kicking in this year. Some of them are two, some of them are five or seven year orders. So it's pretty long term. It bodes well for continued moderate organic growth in the best business, I would say, compared to organic decline last year and now that a lot of these things, these major orders with the major MRI companies of the world are settled for multiple years, we think what's built in there is a healthy single digit organic growth and so that stabilizes, that turns it around. But no, it certainly isn't all incremental. Some of these fusion orders at RI are incremental. Some of this and most in 27, 28 revenue performance. And some of this stuff here is just reversing the trend and setting up a very stable, healthy trend, we think for multiple years. Invest.

OPERATOR

Great, thank you. The next question is from Patrick Donnelly with Citi. Please go ahead.

Patrick Donnelly (Equity Analyst at Citi)

Hey guys, thank you for taking the questions. Frank, maybe one for you on Acagov. Certainly appreciate the commentary on the US and a little bit on China. Can you talk about what you're seeing in Europe? We've seen some mixed data points from others on that region for Acagov. Just curious what you guys are seeing and the expectations going forward there.

Frank Laukene (President and CEO)

Yeah, I wish I had a better crystal ball, Patrick. I, I, you know, one quarter for as you know, some of this always fluctuations in that. So it was good in Q1, but I, I expect, you know, single digit, I don't even want to specify whether it's low, mid or high. I expect probably mid to high single digit organic growth in that also in Europe, given the strength, not so much necessarily all the budgets because there are some defense pull on that as well. Right now budgets are not only going up in Europe for research, but funding for our equipment for, you know, proteomics. And now Proteomics 2.0, the age of the proteoform, the intact functional proteins and leadership in spatial biology. Clear technological leadership and applications. Leadership in spatial biology and you know a recovery of NMR I think is all bodes well for us to grow ahead of the general funding environment.

Patrick Donnelly (Equity Analyst at Citi)

So if I had to put a number on there, I think it's mid to high single digit growth opportunity, organic growth opportunity, but there will be quarterly fluctuations. Understood, thanks. And then Gerald, so I'm going to pin you down a little bit on some of the 2Q moving pieces. I just wanted to make sure is there an ultra high field in the quarter? And then I wanted to follow up on Tyco's margin question. If you could just help us out a little bit on the margins. I think previously folks were thinking mid teens for 2Q and then the earnings number, what that might shake out as would be appreciated.

Gerald Herman (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, we can go through some of that in more detail separately. But what I'd say is first of all we don't expect a gigahertz class system in Q2 of 26. So I think that will have some impact related to, I think generally speaking, as I said earlier, we are expecting a step up in operating margin performance fairly significantly in the second quarter and sequentially. Sequentially from Q1, certainly on a year over year basis as well. And I think just from an EPS perspective, we expect to do better in the second quarter than we did sequentially from 1Q26. We can talk about more category details if you'd like later.

Patrick Donnelly (Equity Analyst at Citi)

Understood, thanks.

Joe Koska (Director of Investor Relations)

One last question. We probably should wrap it up just about 9 o' clock because there's another company starting their earnings call and we want to be respectful of that. Yes. So this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Joe Koska for any closing remarks. Thank you for joining us today. Bruker's leadership team looks forward to meeting with you at an event or speaking with you directly during the second quarter. Feel free to reach out to me to arrange any follow up. Have a good day. Thank you.

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