With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

This is the 40th year for our annual Fastest-Growing Companies list, which ranks companies based on growth in revenue, profits, and stock returns.

100 Fastest-Growing Companies

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Industries included in the sector are electrical equipment and industrial machinery.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Industrials

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

These 52 companies from across the globe are doing well by doing good.

Change the World

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

Here’s our look at 57 companies that do well by doing good.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Fastest-growing Companies

Revenue 3 Yr Growth Rank

Revenue 3 Yr Annual Growth Rate

EPS 3 Yr Growth Rank

EPS 3 Yr Annual Growth Rate

Total Return 3 Yr Rank

Total Return 3 Yr Annual Rate

Beat S&P 500 3 Yr Return

Current Streak

Years on List

Sector

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Xylem is a global water technology company that designs, manufactures, and services engineered solutions for utility, industrial, residential, and commercial building applications. Operating through four key segments, Xylem provides innovative products such as pumps, filtration systems, smart meters, and advanced data analytics under brands like Flygt, Goulds Water Technology, Sensus, and Xylem Vue. The company’s offerings span water and wastewater management, stormwater control, and digital monitoring services to help address the world’s most pressing water challenges.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

Xylem (XYL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

Xylem

xylem

Welcome to Xylem's First Quarter 2026 Results 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 then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question please press star and then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Michael Travers, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Xylem's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. With me today are Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Pine, and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Grogan. They will provide their perspectives on Xylem's first quarter results and discuss the second quarter and full year 2026 outlook. Following our prepared remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered on the call. I'll ask that you please keep to one question and a follow-up, and then return to the queue. As a reminder, this call and our webcast are accompanied by a slide presentation available in the Investors section of the website. A replay of today's call will be available until midnight, May 12th, and will be available for playback via the Investors section of our website under the heading Investor Events. Please turn to slide two.

We will make some forward-looking statements on today's call, including references to future events or developments that we anticipate will or may occur in the future. These statements are subject to future risks and uncertainties, such as those factors described in Xylem's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and in subsequent reports filed with the SEC. Please note that the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements publicly to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, and actual events or results could differ materially from those anticipated. Please turn to slide three. We have provided you with a summary of our key performance metrics, including both GAAP and non-GAAP metrics. For the purposes of today's call, all references will be on an organic and/or adjusted basis unless otherwise indicated, and non-GAAP financials have been reconciled for you and are included in the appendix section of the presentation.

Now, please turn to slide four, and I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Matthew Pine.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Coming off a strong 2025 with sustained momentum, 2026 is proving resilient with a solid first quarter financial performance despite a dynamic external environment. Demand for our mission-critical solutions were consistent with expectations. Our teams are leveraging our reduced complexity to execute with discipline, staying close to customers, as evidenced by our strong book-to-bill in the quarter, and focusing on long-term value creation. We had a strong start to the year deploying capital across the business in line with our priorities. In January, we increased our dividend by about 8%. In February, we announced a new $1.5 billion share repurchase authorization, executing on $581 million in quarter one. This reflects our confidence in the business and our commitment to a balanced approach to capital allocation.

In March, we signed an agreement to acquire a German firm that designs and manufactures highly engineered water quality instruments. The company is a leader in submersible sensors for environmental monitoring, and the acquisition expands our role as a systems intelligence partner, supporting resilient long-cycle demand and enabling higher value digital and service solutions. I also want to highlight how our transformation is helping advance our priorities. Our self-improvement initiatives are foundational, simplifying our structure and processes to build stronger capabilities. They strengthen our resilience, enhancing our ability to mitigate macro uncertainty. That operational foundation is centered around making it easier to do business with us and building our growth engine. To that end, WSS booked our largest order ever this month, an outsourced water contract for $850 million delivered over 20 years. This isn't just a milestone, it reinforces that our strategy is delivering.

We continue to make progress with our disciplined approach to M&A with a solid pipeline of opportunities in place. We're progressing towards our $1 billion annual target, optimizing our portfolio and leveraging our balance sheet. Taken together, this progress shows we are well underway in our multi-year operating model transformation, strengthening our growth engine through disciplined execution and operational rigor. I'll pass it over to Bill to take us through the details of Q1 and updated guidance.

Thanks, Matthew. Please turn to slide five. We are pleased with the strong start to the year. The team stayed focused despite the volatility and delivered healthy results to build off of as we progress through the year. Demand remained solid with our ending backlog up sequentially to $4.7 billion, and our book-to-bill for the quarter was above one. Orders were flat versus last year, driven by project timing in WSS, offsetting strength in the other segments. Revenue was also flat in the quarter versus prior year, in line with expectations as we saw impacts from our 80/20 efforts and China headwinds moderating our short-term revenue outlook. The team's operational discipline delivered quarterly EBITDA margin of 20.6%, up 20 basis points versus the prior year. The improvement was driven by productivity and price more than offsetting inflation, significant mix, and lower volume.

We also achieved quarterly EPS of $1.12, a 9% increase over the prior year. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA increased to 0.6 times, driven by our opportunistic share repurchases in the quarter. Free cash flow was positive in the first quarter, driven by timing of accruals and lower payments, offset in part by restructuring costs and higher CapEx. The teams continue to make progress with their working capital efficiency metrics. Let's turn to slide six. In Measurement & Control Solutions, book-to-bill was below one, but backlog remained flat sequentially at roughly $1.4 billion. Orders were up a robust 15%, driven by smart metering demand in water as we made progress on the projects that shifted out of Q4. We expect double-digit orders growth for water throughout the balance of the year. Revenue was up 1%, driven by energy metering demand, offset in part by softness in water meters.

EBITDA margin was 20.9% and was 10 basis points lower than prior year, driven by unfavorable mix and inflation, offset partly by productivity and price. We also wanted to provide an update to our international metering divestiture. Due to regulatory approval timing, we now expect the deal to close at the end of Q2, which is reflected in our updated guidance. In Water Infrastructure, orders were up 2% in the quarter, driven by strong demand in transport, supported by growth in the U.S. and India. Revenue was down 1%, driven by softness in treatment related to walkaway actions, partly offset by strength in transport. Growth in the U.S. was offset by declines in China and Western Europe. EBITDA margin for Water Infrastructure was up 120 basis points, with productivity more than offsetting inflation and mix.

In Applied Water, orders were also up 2%, and book-to-bill was well above one, lifted by large projects and data center wins. Data center orders in Q1 exceeded the full year amount for all of 2025. Revenues were flat versus the prior year, primarily driven by strength in U.S. commercial buildings, offsetting softness in industrial and residential end markets. EBITDA margin was below expectations but increased 10 basis points year-over-year, driven by productivity and price, mostly offset by inflation, volume, and mix. We are confident in the segment's strong margin expansion opportunities throughout the remainder of the year. Finally, Water Solutions and Services saw an orders decline driven by capital project timing. Subsequently, WSS booked its largest order ever in April, an $850 million outsourced water contract with a 20-year service contract.

Revenue declined 2% year-over-year, driven by capital project timing and weather impacts on service branch operations, partly offset by strength in dewatering. Segment EBITDA margin was 22.1%, up 40 basis points versus the prior year, driven by price, productivity, and mix, offset by inflation, volume, and investments. Let's turn to slide seven for our updated full year and second quarter guidance. The organic outlook is largely unchanged versus what we provided at the start of the year, with minor changes to our reported figures due to the delayed divestiture closing in MCS. Full year reported revenue is now expected to be $9.2 billion-$9.3 billion, up from the prior guide of $9.1 billion-$9.2 billion, which delivers revenue growth of 2%-3%.

While organic revenue growth of 2%-4% remains unchanged versus prior guidance. EBITDA margin is expected to remain at 22.9%-23.3%. This represents 70 basis points to 110 basis points of expansion versus the prior year, driven by productivity and price more than offsetting inflation as well as investments in the business. Benefits from our simplification efforts will help mitigate mix pressure from MCS. There's no material impact to our projected results from recently announced changes in tariffs. Despite the benefit from share repurchases, we've chosen to keep our EPS range unchanged at $5.35-$5.60, reflecting a prudent approach to guidance in an uncertain macro environment and not a change to our outlook for the year. Cash flow generation started strong this year.

We remain committed to low double-digit free cash flow margin in our long-term financial framework. We'll make additional progress in 2026. Drilling down on the second quarter. We anticipate revenue growth will be in the 2%-3% range on a reported basis and roughly 1% organically. We expect second quarter EBITDA margin to be approximately 22%-22.5%, which is up 20 to 70 basis points, driven by price realization, productivity gains, and higher volumes. Second quarter MCS EBITDA margin will be down year-over-year, driven again by the impacts from energy. We expect it to improve sequentially from the first quarter and return to margin expansion in the second half. These results will yield second quarter EPS of $1.31-$1.36. We started the year with strong demand in a position of strength.

Our balanced outlook reflects our strong commercial position, the durability of our portfolio, and benefits from our simplification efforts. While we also continue to monitor broader market conditions and volatility, including the Middle East conflict, changes in tariffs, and other inflationary pressures, along with fluctuations in currency and interest rates, overall, our expectations for the year remain positive, and we build on our strong momentum. Please turn to slide eight, and I'll turn the call back over to Matthew for closing comments.

Thanks, Bill. I want to return to the core purpose of our company, to empower our customers and communities to build a more water-secure world. We've been very intentional about putting customers and communities at the center of our strategy. In one place, you can clearly see that progress is in sustainability. Xylem's 2025 sustainability report was posted to our website on April 24th. The report reflects the fundamental truth about our business. Long-term success is driven by disciplined execution applied in service of a clear purpose that delivers meaningful outcomes for the communities we serve. Looking back at 2025, that alignment delivered concrete, measurable results. In partnership with our colleagues, customers, and communities, we've achieved our sustainability goals we set in 2019 around water reuse, pollution prevention, and stewardship.

Looking ahead, we're building on that progress through our 2030 sustainability agenda, which is focused on longer-term systematic impact around three signature priorities: decarbonizing the water sector, strengthening water stewardship, and expanding access to water, sanitation, and hygiene. Sustaining this progress means continuing to evolve Xylem to a position for what comes next, especially for our customers as we leverage the simplicity we've created through the first phase of our transformation. That's why I'm pleased to share two updates to the executive leadership team. To further strengthen how we serve our customers across our global footprint, Snehal Desai is assuming a more focused role as Chief Growth and Commercial Officer. In this role, Snehal will lead our enterprise growth strategy and execution, doubling down on commercial excellence, customer focus, and consistent delivery of scale.

At the same time, to accelerate innovation that directly translates into customer value, Sivan Zamir has been appointed to a newly created role as Chief Innovation and Products Officer. Sivan will build the capabilities required to bring differentiated solutions to market faster. This leadership update, along with our purpose-forward culture, operational rigor, and disciplined capital deployment, accelerates Xylem's growth engine and positions us to deliver exceptional long-term value creation. Now let's open up the call for your questions.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Our first question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Hey, I'd love to hear more about this outsource contract. Congratulations. This is exactly the way you've positioned WSS to build out services. Anything about the customer, you know, anything on the economics, and is there a pipeline for more of these types of outsourced contracts?

For sure, there's more pipeline, and I push the team every day on that topic, Dean. Thanks for the question. I can't name the actual customer, but it is an existing customer of ours, and it's in the specialty chemical vertical. You know, we're providing processed water for cooling and also boiler feed water in their manufacturing process. It's a great example of our technical know-how on the front end of a capital build, along with our ability to provide a long-term service tail, which is really great for the next 20 years for our business. Maybe I'll have Bill walk you a little bit through some of the numbers.

Deane. Out of the $850 million, it's about 75% service and 25% capital. right, we'll realize about 10% of the contract value this year, with the balance of the capital bill the next year and look to flow water in 2028 to start the service tail.

Really good to hear. Then just a second question, Matt, I liked how you started off with using the word resilient. Can you give us a sense of the municipal demand outlook at this stage of the year and anything on the macro? I mean, there's nervousness about project activity, you know, away from municipal, but just, you know, the approval process on projects. Any color there would be helpful. Thanks.

Okay. Yeah, I would say that the overall utility demand remains resilient, like I said in some of the opening remarks. I was with about 15 utility CEOs across all parts of the U.S., specifically a few weeks back, and, you know, we spent a lot of time together, the full day, and these are large municipalities across the U.S., and there was really no indication of any meaningful funding pullbacks or project delays, you know, outside of some of the normal things you would expect to see. For our business in Q1, U.S. utility orders, and this is based on the MCS and the WI segments, which are really a proxy for utility orders, we were up double digits in the U.S. Our revenue was up mid-teens.

You know, I would tell you right there that shows the resilience of the utility demand in the U.S. If you kinda pull the lens back and look at those two segments I talked about, overall, WI was up 2% in orders, you know, supported by transport, the U.S. and India. You've heard us talk a lot about China, and we've signaled that in the past, and we were down 30% year-over-year in China. That's really a big part of the drag. In Europe, specifically Western Europe, there's sort of short-term noise with our 80/20 initiatives. In MCS, you heard Bill talk in the opening comments, orders were up 15% for MCS, driven by large water orders.

Primarily in the Southeast of the U.S. and solid energy activity. All in all, Deane, you know, there remains significant demand for our solutions. You know, we're dealing with an aging infrastructure in the developed parts of the world, Western Europe and the U.S. It has to be addressed. If you look at what the United States Army Corps of Engineers says about our infrastructure, they give us a C- to a D+ depending on which part of the infrastructure you're looking at in water: drinking water, wastewater, storm water. You know, we talk about $1.5 trillion needed over the next decade just in the U.S. to maintain those poor ratings. You know, from my perspective and, you know, from the customer's perspective, things are still pretty robust.

The next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Matthew, morning. Can you give us a little more color on what you're seeing in terms of price versus inflation across the company? I know you mentioned Applied Water, Q1 margin was generally fine across the portfolio, but for instance, you know, you thought Applied Water get back to 20%, and you did acknowledge you record a bit lower than you expected. Maybe just talk about conviction staying ahead of inflation and getting that uptick in margin trajectory that you expect for the rest of the year.

Yeah. I think for the broader portfolio, we're still price cost positive from a price of material cost, including the tariff piece. I think the teams have been extremely proactive and have built up a solid skill set to understand the levers, timing, and process to capture the incremental value to offset inbound inflation. We've seen it here with the escalation with Iran and fuel prices increasing, you know, where we've seen immediate fuel surcharges go into place to offset that. I think we're confident that we can stay ahead of inflation through price as our first lever, and then teams continue to work on sourcing actions as a secondary lever. For Applied Water specifically, as we said in the call, I think, you know, the performance was below our expectations.

I think primarily that was more of mix within the sales on the gross margin line. You know, I think we're confident that they're gonna get back above 20% as we look at the balance here relative to the cost actions they've taken, mix normalizing some of these data center projects that Matthew highlighted in the opening comments will start to play at a little bit higher margin, and they'll sequentially improve through the balance of the year.

Bill, that's helpful. Then, maybe the same kind of question on organic growth for the year. You obviously need an uptick in growth in the second half to meet your forecast. It seems like you made progress on booking those five to 10 projects that you've been most focused on in MCS. Maybe give us a little more color there. Then it's nice to hear about the big capital project in WSS, but do you need, you know, capital recovery at all in WSS to make your original, I think it was mid-single-digit organic growth for that segment?

No, I think, again, we've seen the things, you know, that we needed to see happen here in the first quarter relative to strong MCS orders and some of those projects that were delayed start. Now we got the orders that they're going to play out through the balance of the year. We still need to have two more orders hit for us to reach our back half, relative to conversations with the team, that looks positive. Right, the book and ship for MCS was actually up 9%, there's a lot of traction and progress there as inventory within the channel is back to normalized levels. I think from a broader Xylem perspective, the ramp in the second half, you know, we're going to see a significant ramp in volume here from the first quarter.

That's part of our normal seasonality. If you look at the third quarter, it's basically the same revenue dollar sequentially, and we go from a 1% growth to a 5%. We'll see the normal seasonal ramp in the fourth quarter relative to Water Infrastructure to get us to another mid-single-digit number. I think relative to normal seasonality and the orders we've needed to see and have progressed and give us confidence in our back half figures at this point in time.

The next question comes from Mike Halloran with Baird. Please go ahead.

Can you just touch on the capital allocation piece. you know, one, good to see the magnitude of buyback in the quarter. What's the intent look like from here? Stock stays in and around where it is now. Do you see yourself being as aggressive as we move through the year? Well, I'll leave that as the first question, sorry.

Yeah, I'll take that, Mike. You know, we continue to buy in April and, you know, we'll reassess the balance of Q2 after this month. You know, we're kind of looking at a couple ways. One is, you know, managing kind of our leverage between half a turn and a turn, you know, net debt to EBITDA. You know, obviously, we also wanna balance that with taking advantage of stock dislocation. We'll reassess it here at the end of the month as we get into the meat of Q2. You know, we've got a real healthy balance sheet, and we'll continue to deploy capital across our whole framework over the course of the year.

Makes sense. Maybe just talk about what the optionality looks like in terms of pipeline, actionability, et cetera. Maybe just give a little bit more context on why the tuck-in you made on the analytics side made sense for you all.

I think, you know, in my opening remarks, and I've said this in the past, we talk about $1 billion of capital deployment towards M&A, you know, to help us get to the kind of mid-teen EPS growth that we outlined at our Investor Day back in 2024. We're still tracking for that. You know, you've heard me talk a lot about our improved internal process, where before we were a bit more top-down.

A bit lumpy in terms of our execution on M&A, bigger targets. Now we're much more focused in the segments with the segment presidents really owning it, working bottom up. Because of that work over the past couple of years, we have a very strong pipeline and across all of our segments. I think that gives us a lot of confidence that we'll be more consistent over time with capital deployment. What was the second part of your question?

Oh, the Tucker. Sorry. Yeah, the recent deal we just signed. It's a, you know, like I said on the prepared remarks, first of all, we have confidentiality provisions with the seller, so we're unable to share the target's name or a lot of the transaction details outside the purchase price. That was $219 million. It's, you know, really a highly engineered water quality instruments business. It strengthens our position in high margin, optical sensing and process applications across clean water, wastewater environment and industry. I think for us, you know, we expect pretty significant revenue synergies. Although it's a small to medium bolt-on, we do expect significant revenue synergies through leveraging, you know, our industrial and utility customer base. I think from that perspective, it makes a lot of sense, as we continue to grow our analytics part of our business.

The next question comes from Jake Levinson with Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Just on Measurement & Control, it looks like things are stabilizing a little bit there. The order book looks pretty solid. Can you maybe just mark to market where we are in the cycle across electric and water? 'Cause I know they're not necessarily synchronized right now, but it seems like there's a refresh cycle going on in electric, and maybe that's coming in water. How do you see that playing out this year and maybe into 2027?

I mean, just at the high level, if you go back to kind of 2008 and 2009 with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, coming out of the Great Recession, the utilities on the electric side did a major push on AMI. You started to see a refresh there over the past, probably last year into this year and the next coming couple of years. Water was probably anywhere from five to seven years behind that initial wave of AMI deployments. You know, as we're moving through the next, you know, two to three years of electric refreshes, we'll start to, as we exit this decade going into 2030, start to see a pickup in the refresh of water.

That's a little bit of history and some of the timing as we think about, you know, energy and the refreshes going on now. As we get into the end of the decade, we'll start to see a turn and a pickup on the water refresh side.

Okay. That's helpful. Just on China, I think I heard you mention it was down 30% this quarter. Have we bottomed in that market yet and it's just a function of the, of the comps today? I guess just relatedly, how much of that 30% is the market versus some of the work you're doing to reposition that business?

I think we'd probably say it is bottoming out, kind of bouncing at the bottom here, right, with the team making some progress in some of their focused efforts, with areas where we actually have more differentiation, and we're doubling down and focusing. I think we've highlighted about a third is market, a third is kind of actions that our competitors are taking, and then a third is, you know, kind of us actively walking away from business. I think, you know, for the total Xylem, most of the pressure is here in the first and second quarter, that comp gets easier. You know, we said for the full year it was about 1% headwind for sales, but that equates to, again, on the first half of the year, about 2% since it's primarily concentrated in the first and second quarters.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.

The next question comes from Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please go ahead.

I guess I'll start with an MCS question. Obviously seen some pretty good order growth over the last few quarters. I mean, it's been double digit for four quarters in a row. The actual dollar level of orders has been below the level of revenue. Can you talk about, you know, how that supports growth, how we should think about growth, you know, going forward, not just this year, but as we go into 2027, 2028? What kind of order rates do you need to support growth over the next couple of years?

Yeah, I think long term over the cycle as things normalize, you know, it's that high single-digit rate. Relative to the lumpiness of the business and large projects come in, I think you have to look at a combination of our backlog position, you know, in conjunction with orders, right? 'Cause you see, you know, our backlog increased sequentially, but not in the magnitude of what the implied book-to-bill, because the orders we received within the quarter were things of projects that we had won, that now we have kind of a go with firm commitments to start delivering within the year. I think it's really looking at over a kind of a rolling probably 24 month, looking at a high single digit order growth rate with a check on our backlog growth and position as that progresses, as we hit some of the replenishments that Matthew highlighted.

Okay. I guess the follow-ups are margins. You know, the business already has sequentially stronger margins in the second half, and, you know, the margin expansion is, in 2026 is significantly lower in the first half than the implied expansion in the second half. Can you just talk about the contributors to the accelerating margin expansion in the second half and where we should see those materialize? Thanks.

Yeah. No, I think it's across the portfolio, but significant expansion within MCS and Water Infrastructure, primarily as mix normalizes and we shift from price-driven growth to significant volume growth based upon some of the projects hitting with it within MCS, and then within Water Infrastructure, getting past some of this walkaway pressure and China pressure here in the first half. That's really a volume and mix normalization, kind of leveraging the structural costs that we've taken out last year and continue to take out in the first half of 2026.

The next question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

To follow up on Nathan's question, I guess to ask a little more directly, you know, given, you know, current visibility with MCS inclusive of, you know, mixed expectations and the pending divestiture, how should we think about, you know, margin cadence through the back half? And, you know, more importantly, the, what's a realistic exit rates or equivalently jumping off point for 2027 margin?

I think as we said in the prepared remarks, MCS will sequentially increase, and exit the year post the international metering divestiture well in excess of 25% EBITDA margins. You know, I think that's the base rate going into next year with, again, the water balance of sale normalizing and then the actions the team are taking on continued profitability improvements within the gas and electric business.

That's very encouraging. We know your consolidated organic sales outlook is unchanged, and it doesn't sound like the moving parts within that have meaningfully shifted. If we think about the segment expectations that you outlined last quarter, are there any shifts that you would call out? Particularly curious about MCS and WSS, just given the moving parts for those segments.

No. No. It is no major changes to the organic guide in aggregate, and no major changes to the makeup between the segments.

The next question comes from William Griffin with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the time. Good morning. Just wanted to come back to your comments on sort of price cost and really specifically kind of drilling into, you know, potential supply chain impacts here on material costs as global supply chains continue to be disrupted. I know you've got some locked in, you know, sort of fixed price arrangements for materials, but could you elaborate a bit on, you know, how long do those last? How much does that insulate your business? You know, what is your sort of visibility to managing any increase in raw materials costs post any of the fixed price arrangements?

I think we have some forward fixed contracts, but that's limited on some of our raw commodity exposures. I think our supply chain team does a phenomenal job at looking for alternate sources and competitive bids to help mitigate just increase in prices through dynamic supply chain management. Again, our first and forward lever on this is incremental pricing. Again, the practice the team has had post-COVID supply chain challenges, inflationary drivers, now with tariffs and then now potential increased inflation due to rising fuel costs and the ripple effect that that has across the industrial supply chain. I think we're confident that we can continue to offset that.

The magnitude could compress margins slightly, as we're not getting incremental flow through of 40% on that, on those types of price increases. Relative to dollar for dollar, right now our expectations are that we could manage. Obviously we'll see, the next four weeks, I think, will be critical to see what happens with the conflict and if the strait opens up. Again, relative to the actions that we've taken internally, I think we're as prepared as we can be relative in the nimbleness of our new organizational construct.

I appreciate that. Just wanted to follow up on 80/20. I know you had previously talked about 2026 being sort of the peak of walk away. I think that was a 200 basis point offset to the organic growth guidance. Could you just talk about the cadence or timing of that walk away? Is that primarily in the first half or evenly spread throughout the year?

No, I think it's more weighted to the first two to three quarters of the year. There's some longer tail stuff within the treatment business within Water Infrastructure that'll maybe extend past that. We're more heavily weighted here in the first half of the year.

Got it. I appreciate the time. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll wrap up there. Thanks for your questions, and thank you to everyone who joined today.

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

Xylem (XYL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Company Participants