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Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andrea Saba, Director, Investor Relations and Treasury. Please go ahead.

Andrea Saba: Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc.’s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I am Andrea Saba, Director of Investor Relations and Treasury. Joining me today are Alfred Marshall Rankin, Executive Chairman, and Rajiv K. Prasad, President and Chief Executive Officer. Yesterday, we filed our first quarter 2026 earnings release, which provides a detailed overview of our financial results and performance. Today’s discussion is intended to supplement that release by offering additional insights and context. The earnings release, along with a replay of this webcast, is available on the Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. website where the replay will remain accessible for approximately twelve months.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today’s call includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risks are described in our earnings release and SEC filings. We will also reference adjusted financial measures, which we believe provide useful supplemental information to GAAP results. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and investor presentation. I will start with a brief overview of our first quarter performance and outlook, then turn the call over to Rajiv to discuss operations with a strategic update for the business. During the first quarter, bookings improved sequentially, increasing 7% from the fourth quarter as we moved from the cyclical low reached in 2025.

Backlog increased modestly although shipments have not yet reflected this improvement. From a cash perspective, operating cash flow followed typical seasonal patterns with $33 million of cash used in operations, representing a slight improvement compared to the same period last year. Inventory management continued to improve with meaningful year-over-year reductions from better alignment of production with demand. Finished goods inventory declined compared to last year, improving efficiency and positioning us for higher production later in 2026. Revenue declined to $795 million, driven primarily by the normalization of excess backlog and a shift towards lighter-duty, lower-priced trucks. This shift reflects a broader and more persistent change in behavior.

Customers increasingly select the right truck for their specific application, prioritizing standard configuration, near-term affordability, and fit-for-purpose solutions. In response, we have introduced new core counterbalance models built on our modular and scalable platform to address growing demand for standard and value offerings. While these actions strengthen our competitive position, the transition reduced shipments of higher-priced traditional models and contributed to the year-over-year revenue decline in the quarter. Tariffs also remained a significant headwind affecting profitability. In the first quarter, we reported an adjusted operating loss of $26 million, which included approximately $30 million of gross tariff costs. While pricing and cost actions provided partial offsets, tariffs and the shift to lighter-duty, lower-priced trucks more than impacted results.

Looking ahead, we expect 2026 to improve compared to 2025 with profitability in the second half of the year. We anticipate the second quarter to represent the low point for both operating profit and net income. Tariff costs are expected to increase in the second quarter before mitigation actions take effect. At the same time, stronger bookings, backlog growth, and ongoing cost reduction are expected to drive meaningful improvement in the second half of the year. Based on this progression, we expect to deliver a modest consolidated operating profit for the full year despite a loss in the first half. With that overview, I will now turn the call over to Rajiv.

Rajiv K. Prasad: Thank you, Andrea, and good morning, everyone. With that context on our first quarter performance and near-term outlook, I would like to step back and focus on how we are positioning the business and the progress we are making on our transformation as we navigate this phase of the cycle. I will begin with tariffs. Given recent legal and policy developments, tariffs have already had a significant impact on our cost structure. Since Liberation Day in 2025, we have incurred approximately $130 million of direct tariff-related costs excluding indirect effects such as supplier price increases and higher steel costs. With a predominantly built-to-order manufacturing model, there is an inherent lag between tariff implementation and corresponding price realization.

As a result, cost recovery occurs over the order and delivery cycle, not immediately. In February 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated tariffs imposed under the IEPA tariff regime. While that decision created a pathway to pursue refunds, it did not reduce the overall tariff burden on our business. Subsequent action by the administration introduced new higher tariffs, including a 10% global tariff under section 122 and expanded tariffs under section 232 that now apply to the full import value of certain steel derivative products, including finished forklifts and components. Based on current conditions, we expect our effective tariff rate in 2026 to increase by approximately 6% compared with 2025. With respect to refunds, we have applied for approximately $40 million related to previously paid IEPA tariffs through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection CAPE process.

We also plan to seek approximately $15 million to $20 million in reimbursements from suppliers. These potential refunds were not included in our first quarter results or reflected in our outlook. The timing and ultimate amount of any recovery remains uncertain. Even if recovered in full, these refunds would represent only a portion of the tariff costs we have incurred. Consistent with our prior communication, we expect any refunds ultimately received would be used to mitigate ongoing and future tariff impacts. Turning to the broader operating environment, the lift truck market continues to favor lighter-duty, lower-priced equipment. This shift has been both more pronounced and longer lasting than in prior cycles. Rather than viewing this solely as a near-term headwind, we see it as a clear signal of how the market is evolving.

Our transformation is intentionally designed to strengthen our position in these value-oriented segments while preserving the ability to scale margins and earnings as volumes recover. Against that backdrop, our focus remains on executing our transformation initiatives to lower our cost base, improve flexibility, and reduce earnings volatility across the cycle. These are not short-term responses to current conditions, but structural changes intended to improve performance as market conditions normalize. Our transformation is centered on four priorities. First, product evolution. As customer preferences continue to shift towards standard and value configurations, we have begun introducing these offerings within our core 1 to 3.5 ton counterbalance product line, where demand for lighter-duty applications is increasing.

These products are built on our modular scalable platforms, enabling common architecture, shared components, and flexible manufacturing. This improves cost efficiency, supports competitive price points, and allows us to respond more quickly as demand continues to evolve. While this transition has reduced shipments of higher-priced traditional models in the near term, our new products are gaining traction. We expect to continue moving in this direction with additional product introductions planned as we align our portfolio to customer needs and support future volume growth. Second, operational and cost structure transformation. Operating costs declined year over year in the first quarter, reflecting restructuring actions initiated in 2025, including Nuvera strategic realignment and broader workforce reductions.

We began to see early benefits in the quarter with meaningful margin improvement expected as volumes recover. In parallel, our longer-term manufacturing footprint optimization continues with the largest financial benefits expected in later periods. Third, end-to-end digital enablement. We continue to better align product development, manufacturing, and commercial execution through more integrated systems and processes. This is improving decision-making, execution speed, and life cycle management across the organization. Fourth, commercial and go-to-market execution. We remain focused on disciplined pricing, dealer execution, and improving aftermarket, attachments, and service penetration over time to strengthen mix, cover tariffs, and improve life cycle economics.

A key enabler across all four priorities is our integrated individual product line management model, which brings together product, engineering, operations, and commercial teams with clear accountability. This model is designed to sharpen decision-making and translate strategy into measurable financial outcomes as market conditions normalize. With that foundation in place, I want to outline how these efforts are translating into early customer traction and acceptance of our strategy. One example comes from a new conquest opportunity with a large warehouse club customer that had concerns about pedestrian safety during after-hour stocking. We demonstrated our proximity detection and related safety technologies, highlighting their effectiveness in blind corners and high-traffic environments.

Following those discussions, the customer engaged directly with our innovation team and elected to move forward with an initial purchase for a greenfield site as a test deployment. Beyond safety, we are also seeing acceptance of our new product platforms designed to improve productivity and address labor constraints. In warehouse trucks, we introduced a new three-wheel stand-up counterbalance truck featuring technology-driven ergonomic and productivity enhancements that are resonating with customers. In direct store delivery, customer evaluation of the Hyster and Yale Route Runner and nested pallet truck with a detachable motorized unit demonstrated operational efficiency gains, including delivery efficiency, reduced labor reliance, and improved route time.

We view this as a differentiated solution addressing an underserved market. Commercially launched in April, the Route Runner has already secured orders from several large beverage distributors. Taken together, these examples reinforce the direction of our strategy: delivering high-value, differentiated solutions that address real needs, support growth opportunities, reduce cyclicality, and improve operating margins over time. With that perspective, I will turn the call over to Al for closing remarks. Thank you.

Alfred Marshall Rankin: As you have heard today, the industry remains in a difficult phase of the cycle. Demand has been constrained by macroeconomic uncertainty, including the impact associated with the Iran conflict, the changing mix of trucks which customers want and need, tariffs which continue to be a material headwind, and customers who have remained cautious as they work through receipt of equipment ordered in prior time periods. At the same time, we are beginning to see early signs of improved demand led by enhanced customer engagement and increased focus on fleet replacement. Against that backdrop, the actions our Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. team has taken and continues to take to transform Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc.

have the capability of repositioning Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc.’s profit structure and growth prospects. Over the past year, we have focused on strengthening the fundamentals of the business by expanding our product lines, lowering our structural cost base, improving operational flexibility, sharpening our focus on cash generation, and investing in marketing the products and capabilities that matter most to our customers. These actions are not short-term responses to a difficult environment; they are deliberate structural changes designed to improve how the company performs as volumes recover and market conditions improve. Importantly, they are consistent with the transformation Rajiv described. We are optimistic that 2026 represents a turning point.

We expect bookings to improve, backlog to rebuild a bit, and cost reduction actions to take hold, and we expect all this to strengthen financial performance significantly in the second half. We remain disciplined in our execution activities and prudent in our capital allocation. Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. has navigated many cycles over its history, and that experience gives us the confidence of experience, not complacency. The actions underway today are designed to transform Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. to build a higher growth, higher margin, and less cyclical business. As a result, we believe the company will then be well positioned for significant shareholder returns over time. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the call for questions.

Operator: We will now open the call for questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch tone 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 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question will be from Ted Jackson from Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

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Rajiv K. Prasad: Thank you. Good morning. Hi, Ted.

Ted Jackson: I am going to start with unit mix with regards to the modular equipment and the more value-oriented trucks. This is the strategy you have been going for, but could you unpack the mix in the lift truck business between older legacy units and the newer modular product, where that trend came from, where it was as you rolled through last year to where it is now, and where you see it going? And behind that, on a like-for-like basis, what would be the difference in terms of price point, and is there any difference in margin? I do not want this to be a huge multipoint question, and I have a couple more.

Rajiv K. Prasad: I will not be quite as specific for some data that we do not typically publish. We certainly do not talk about volumes. Firstly, the majority of the trucks that are now modular scalable are the 1 to 3.5 ton trucks, especially the internal combustion engine trucks, although we are in the process of launching our electric version of the 1 to 3.5 ton trucks. The two most important series have been launched already: what we call our 2 to 3 ton DBB and the 2 to 3 ton CBB. The start of production for the DBB has already begun in Europe, and the CBB will start soon. The internal combustion engine trucks in that range are now fully modular scalable. The only trucks we are shipping in that range are the modular scalable trucks.

That shipment has started this year, especially into our EMEA territories with emission controls, so that is North America and Western and Eastern Europe. We have been shipping those trucks for quite a while into Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa, including South Africa, but now they are fully implemented globally, and the legacy version of that truck is now out of production apart from one model that is going into some of the emerging markets. The 1 to 3.5 ton truck is the largest part of the market, especially if you take out the small pallet trucks, and for us it is typically around a third of our volume. For some of the other product lines, what we are introducing are not trucks on the same platform, but trucks that fill that gap.

For example, in our 4 to 9 ton truck range we are introducing a low-intensity product, and later in the year, probably early in the fourth quarter in North America, we will introduce a more standard version of the truck. In some markets, those are already available. Ultimately, we will have a modular scalable version in the 4 to 9 ton range, but that is still a few years away and has just initiated development right now. I would say that currently somewhere around 40% of the market we have covered with some level of scalability.

Alfred Marshall Rankin: I would like to discuss the lag between the introduction of the models and the full uptake both with our national accounts and with our dealers because that really has not occurred yet. So I think the other part of your question is where are the shipments today, and the bottom line is we are getting ready to really ship lots of these, but in the market they are just getting started as far as looking backwards is concerned. I think that is correct, Rajiv.

Rajiv K. Prasad: That is right. The bookings have been there since the early part of this year. The shipments are basically happening now onwards. Dealers will receive those trucks, customers will get demonstrations and try them out in their applications, and then more orders will come in. There is that cycle, which seems to take us somewhere around four to six months, although the seed orders are already there.

Alfred Marshall Rankin: That is a really important point because we have really good dealers, especially in North America and parts of core Europe, and we have a sound structure in other parts of the world. When they get the product, they will sell it. It is unrealistic to think that we could get the share we traditionally get before those products really get out there in the marketplace. We feel that the strength of our dealership and our own efforts with our national accounts and large accounts, as we have these trucks more fully in the pipeline and available for customer application, are going to really start to move, especially in the second half.

Rajiv K. Prasad: In terms of margin, we feel we have designed each of these trucks to hit their target margin requirements, and so we expect that this will have a positive impact on our margin.

Ted Jackson: If I recall, the whole strategy with the modular trucks is to be more competitive, given some of the Asian products coming in very inexpensively, so that you can be price competitive with them and be able to produce at comparable margins to what you have had in the past. The combination should enable you to take share because you have had some competitive issues on pricing. You will have at worst an equivalent product, probably a better one, with an architecture that allows you to keep your margins and be more competitive. Is that the right way to think about it?

Alfred Marshall Rankin: Think of the market as having three segments, to oversimplify it: value, standard, and premium. We have historically had great strength in premium and continue to do that. We had some entries in standard, and now we are introducing a full line of standard and value trucks, which are growing segments in the marketplace because customers, given high prices in general, are looking for more cost-effective solutions. It is less a matter of being directly competitive with our old trucks and more a matter of filling gaps in the product line that have become much more important than they were.

Rajiv K. Prasad: The customer’s application always really required them to have the right level of capability. For instance, in retail, these trucks do 500 to 750 hours a year. You do not need a very sophisticated truck for that application, and a low-intensity truck is more than capable of handling those applications. In light manufacturing, you have more of a standard truck, and that is a pretty big market. In the past, we sold premium trucks into that market and had lower margins because the customers did not really need all the capability. That is what gets rectified. We were not in any significant way in the value part of the market, so now we can participate across the board and have good margins in each of those segments.

Ted Jackson: The timing is nice because you are hitting it when the market is going to be coming out of a cycle. Shifting to tariffs, you talked about a $30 million impact in the quarter, the second quarter will be something greater than that, and then it will start to tail off because of mitigation strategies. How do you mitigate the tariffs? What are the strategies? How are you going about that? Is it just pricing?

Rajiv K. Prasad: The two primary strategies are pricing and cost. First, pricing: either embedded in core price for some tariffs that have been there a long time, such as section 301, and now even some of section 232 are in core price; and for others like section 122 and the IEPA, which we thought was more temporary, we put a surcharge in place. We have to be conscious of the market price, so we have a sophisticated pricing program to determine how much pricing we can put in. Whatever remains, we then take action on the cost side: go back to our suppliers, work with them to get components located in regions where the tariff is more manageable, and focus on cost reduction. Roughly two-thirds will be pricing and about one-third cost.

The cost readjustment takes a little longer, and so does pricing because we build to order. Our backlog has been somewhere around four to six months depending on the truck. That is why revenue was reduced in the first quarter due to the low point in bookings in 2025 flowing through, and now it is going to start building back up.

Ted Jackson: My last question is an update on where you are in the CFO search.

Rajiv K. Prasad: We are talking to our board about the type of person we are going to look for, and then we will launch it immediately after our board meeting in a couple of weeks. We have been doing a full evaluation of our finance team and rearranging a few things, which has given us a better idea of the capabilities we need in our new CFO.

Ted Jackson: Do not rearrange Andrea too much because I like working with her.

Andrea Saba: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will be from Chip Moore from Roth. Please go ahead.

Chip Moore: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe you could expand on the dynamics you are seeing around pent-up demand with aging fleets and the need to replace. It sounds like you have a fair degree of confidence that things improve in the back half, and you have new products coming out that align with some of the inflationary pressures. Could you dive in there?

Rajiv K. Prasad: At a high level, we had a low point in bookings in the third quarter at about $380 million. That was very low for us and a really tough quarter for us and everyone else. Then we rose to about $540 million in 2025. The first quarter was around $585 million. I am talking units revenue only, not parts or technology, because that is the driver for our business; all the other stuff comes from that. We expect that to continue going up, and that has been consistent with conversations with our customers. A few dynamics are going on. Over the last couple of years, we did a lot of deliveries in 2023 and 2024 to customers who had been waiting. Some of those orders were put in during 2022 that we delivered in 2023, and some orders put in during 2023 that we delivered in 2024.

That has stabilized. As we talk to customers, the average age of their fleets is a little higher than they or we would like, but utilization is also down a bit because manufacturing in North America and Europe is down due to the economy. We expect that to build back up. We are seeing increasing RFQs going out to the field, quoting activity is going up, and engagement with our customers is going up—these are leading indicators. We have seen the same from our dealers. Dealer inventories are back to normal conditions. Those are good indicators for what is coming. We are seeing more stock orders come in from our dealers for our high-flow, ready-to-sell business. Dealers are more confident. Alta, one of our public dealers, has been talking about that as well, which is compatible with what I am saying.

Looking at some of our large customers and their plans, we see that they have significant plans for the third and fourth quarters. That gives us confidence that both shipments and bookings will continue rising into the second half of the year.

Chip Moore: Very helpful color. Maybe talk a bit around automation—are you gaining share in warehouse and the role there? And lastly, an update on the battery strategy.

Rajiv K. Prasad: We are doing well in warehouse, especially with our reach truck, and we have just launched the new three-wheel stand-up product, which is getting excellent feedback from large customers. We continue to demonstrate our automation solution. Since April, we have been out there selling—or really renting—it as a material handling as a service model for our automated truck, and we have had a couple of really good wins. At MODEX, we introduced an early version of our stacker. The tow tractor obviously pulls trailers, and the stacker lifts to typically first and second levels and can also pull things off production lines or set things on distribution lines. We had very positive response at MODEX. We will start demoing that with what we call our friendly core customer base in the third quarter and then release it for sale in the fourth quarter.

In the background, there is work on automating some of the other warehouse products, especially the reach truck and also our counterbalance trucks, which will come in 2027–2028. On batteries, we are starting to ship our own lithium-ion batteries to customers, especially in Europe, and we will initiate that in North America at the beginning of the third quarter. We have pretty large growth plans for the second half of the year, and it will be a significant part of our business in 2027. We will talk more about that at our Investor Day planned for the fourth quarter and bring along some of the things we are doing on the energy and technology side as well.

Chip Moore: Great. I look forward to that in November. Thanks very much.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Andrea Saba for any closing remarks.

Andrea Saba: Thank you for your questions. A replay of our call will be available online later today, and the transcript will be posted on the Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. website. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. My contact information is included in the press release. Thank you again for joining us today.

Operator: To access the digital replay of this conference, you may dial +1 (855) 669-9658 or +1 (412) 317-0088. Replay begins at 2 PM Eastern Time today. You will be prompted to enter a conference number, which will be 938-7098. Please record your name and company when joining. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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