Rockwell Automation, Inc. (ROK) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Thank you for holding, and welcome to Rockwell Automation's quarterly conference call. I need to remind everyone that today's conference call is being recorded. Later in the call, we will open up the lines for questions. If you have a question at that time, please press star one. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Aijana Zellner, Head of Investor Relations and Market Strategy. Ms. Zellner, please go ahead.

Aijana Zellner: Thank you, Julianne. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Rockwell Automation's fourth quarter fiscal 2026 earnings release conference call. With me today is Blake Moret, our Chairman and CEO, and Christian Rothe, our CFO. Our results were released earlier this morning, and the press release and charts are available on our website. These materials, as well as our remarks today, will reference non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures are included in both the press release and charts. A replay of today's webcast and a transcript of our prepared remarks will be available on our website at the conclusion of today's call. Before we begin, please note that our comments today include forward-looking statements regarding the expected future results of our company. Our actual results may differ materially due to a wide range of risks and uncertainties described in our earnings release and SEC filings. With that, I'll hand it over to Blake.

Blake Moret: Thanks, Aijana, and good morning, everyone. Before we turn to our fourth quarter results on slide three, I'd like to make a few opening comments. First of all, since we're talking to you from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it seems only fitting that we congratulate the Milwaukee Brewers on winning the World Series. Fiscal 2026 was a great year for Rockwell too. We delivered growth at the high end of our long-term framework, drove significant margin expansion, and generated strong double-digit earnings growth, all in a year marked by inflationary pressures, tariff uncertainty, and geopolitical volatility. Our performance reflects the differentiated value resulting from our strategy, offering, and operating model. We're gaining share in key product areas, and we achieved our long-term enterprise operating margin target of 22% three years after setting the target. I'm especially proud of the unique new products and productivity improvements we've delivered over that time. We had a very strong Q4, even before the benefit from tariff refunds received from the U.S. government, and we initiated a tariff refund program for eligible customers. The net impact reduced reported sales by approximately $85 million and increased adjusted EPS by $0.11. For the clearest picture of our results in the quarter and for the full-year, we will detail the impact of the IEEPA tariff refunds on company results. This impact is included in the bridges on slides three and six, and you will find a complete recap on slide eight of the earnings deck. Individual business segment, industry, and regional results do not reflect the impact of tariff refunds. On slides three and six, you see core growth, which does not include the impact of tariff refunds. That core growth reflects the strength and diversity of our end markets. We continue to perform well in our traditional markets, including automotive, food and beverage, energy, and life sciences, while expanding our presence in additional growth areas, including semiconductor, data centers, and warehouse automation. I am particularly happy with our strong market access across discrete, hybrid, and process industries, positioning us to capitalize on opportunities across a wider range of end markets. Customers continue to turn to Rockwell to improve productivity, resilience, quality, safety, and workforce effectiveness. As industrial operations become more AI-enabled and increasingly autonomous, customers are looking for ways to orchestrate people, AI agents, workflows, and industrial systems in real time. We believe this represents a significant opportunity for Rockwell and plays directly to our strength. Let us now turn to our fourth quarter results on slide three. Excluding the impact of the tariff refunds and the Sensia joint venture dissolution, core sales grew 7% in the quarter. Remember that we grew double-digits in Q4 of fiscal year 2025. Demand remained healthy, with sales in all three business segments coming in largely in line with expectations. Consistent with prior quarters, products outgrew our longer cycle solutions business, with continued strength in data center, semiconductor, and automotive. In our Intelligent Devices segment, organic sales were up 5% versus prior year, driven by strong adoption of recent product introductions and year-over-year growth in food and beverage, tire, and semiconductor. The OTTO AMR business delivered another quarter of double-digit sales growth and reached profitability as planned, marking an important milestone as we scale our physical AI and autonomous operations capabilities. Software & Control organic sales grew 15%. Logix sales had a strong finish in Q4 with 25% year-over-year growth and mid-single-digit sequential growth. Organic sales and Lifecycle Services were up 2% year-over-year. Book to bill in this segment was 0.97, above our historical Q4 seasonality, with new demand for the energy-focused process automation business that returned to Rockwell following the Sensia dissolution. Organic annual recurring revenue was up 5% year-over-year, with high single-digit growth in software and low single-digit growth in Lifecycle Services. While ARR growth did not meet our expectations, renewals remained strong, and we continue to add new customers across industries and regions. A good example is Booster, a German manufacturer of high-precision automotive components, who selected our cloud-native Plex software to accelerate their digital transformation and improve visibility, traceability, and quality across operations. Enterprise operating margin expanded 320 basis points year-over-year to 24.5%. This includes over a point of positive impact from tariff refunds. Adjusted EPS was $3.88, up 16% year-over-year. Price cost was positive in the quarter and for the full-year. Moving to slide four for Q4 industry highlights. Sales in discrete were up 20% year-over-year, with strong growth in semiconductor, data center, and automotive. Automotive sales grew 15% versus prior year and delivered its strongest quarter in two years, as customers increasingly standardized on our software, controls, and MES platforms to support next-gen manufacturing programs. E-commerce and warehouse automation sales were up high single-digits in the quarter against a difficult comparison, as we grew 70% in the prior year. Importantly, underlying demand remained healthy, driven by continued modernization investments. For the full-year, e-comm and warehouse automation grew nearly 30%, marking another year of exceptional growth and reinforcing our confidence in the long-term opportunity. Semiconductor sales were up almost 50% year-over-year. Semi and data center business continues to see strong demand from investments in AI infrastructure and next-generation computing capacity, driving demand for our automation, software, and power management solutions. With data center having scaled into a meaningful business for Rockwell, we will begin reporting semiconductor and data center as a combined vertical beginning in fiscal 2027. Together, these markets represent about 10% of our revenue and are supported by powerful long-term growth drivers. Our Q4 win with QTS, a leading hyperscale data center provider, highlights the expanding role Rockwell is playing in data centers. As QTS scales capacity to support AI-driven demand, the company is standardizing on Rockwell's technologies across automation, cybersecurity, asset management, and digital infrastructure, positioning us to capture a broader share of spend and participate in future build-outs across its global footprint. Moving to our hybrid industries. Sales in this segment grew mid-single-digits, with strong growth in life sciences and tire. Food and beverage sales were up low single-digits in the quarter and finished the year with mid-single-digit growth. Customer investment remained focused on productivity, cost reduction, and operational resilience. Manufacturers continue to invest in automation and digital transformation initiatives to improve efficiency and operating performance. We are also seeing capacity investments in areas of strong consumer demand. At Kerry Ingredients, a global nutrition solutions provider, our process control, power, and production optimization capabilities are supporting a significant capacity expansion and future growth. Life sciences sales grew high single-digits versus prior year. Looking ahead, we see a healthy pipeline of capacity expansion and infrastructure projects, with growing adoption of MES and process automation solutions, creating opportunities across our entire portfolio. A great example of this is Stryker, a leading medical device manufacturer, who selected Rockwell's integrated control and motion technologies to create a standardized platform to support future growth. Moving to process. Our sales here were up low single-digits, with continued growth in energy and metals, partially offset by tougher prior year comps in mining and chemicals. Energy sales were up high single-digits in the quarter. While capital deployment remains disciplined, customers continue to invest in projects that enhance reliability and energy security. Supporting a healthy pipeline across oil and gas, nuclear, and renewables. We see a particularly attractive opportunity in LNG, where global investments in new export capacity and infrastructure modernization are closely aligned with Rockwell's growing capabilities in automation, software, and cybersecurity for these applications. One example is Perenco's Cap Lopez LNG development in Gabon, where Rockwell was selected by Dick Stone, a global EPC company, to provide an integrated suite of automation, process safety, operator training, and motor control solutions for this large-scale energy project. Mining sales were down about 10% due to project timing and prior year comps. Customer investment remains focused on increasing production, improving productivity, and enhancing operational resilience. We continue to see a strong pipeline tied to copper, lithium, iron ore, and other critical minerals, where investments in capacity expansion and autonomous operations are creating an attractive long-term opportunity across our portfolio. A great example of a recent win in mining is with Vale, one of the world's largest mining companies, who chose Rockwell as a strategic modernization partner at its Carajás mining complex to create a scalable blueprint for future infrastructure upgrades, supporting Vale's goals around safety, reliability, and production growth. Let's turn to slide five for our Q4 organic regional sales. We saw another quarter of strong year-over-year growth across most of our regions. The U.S. was our strongest geography in the quarter and for the full-year, ending fiscal 2026 with over 12% organic growth. We expect North America to continue to be our fastest-growing region in fiscal 2027. Moving to slide six for key highlights of full-year fiscal 2026. As you can see, we had a strong fiscal 2026 with our core sales up 9% versus prior year. Organic ARR grew 5% with high single-digit growth in our software ARR. We had enterprise operating margin of over 22% for three straight quarters and will update our long-term margin targets at the upcoming Investor Day. Adjusted EPS grew over 20% year-over-year. Free cash flow conversion of 113% exceeded our expectations for the year. Let's now turn to slide seven to review our fiscal 2027 outlook. We enter fiscal 2027 from a position of strength. Demand across both our traditional and emerging end markets remains healthy, and customers continue to invest in productivity, resilience, and more autonomous operations. We expect our organic sales growth for the year to be in the 6%-9% range. The midpoint of our guide assumes a seasonal sequential decline in Q1, followed by gradual improvement through the remainder of the year. Christian will provide more detail in his section. Annual recurring revenue is expected to grow 7% next year. We expect our enterprise operating margin to increase by about a point and adjusted EPS to be $15 at the midpoint. We expect free cash flow conversion of 100% in fiscal year 2027. I'll now turn it over to Christian for more detail on our Q4 and financial outlook for fiscal 2027. Christian?

Christian Rothe: Thank you, Blake, and good morning, everyone. Before I walk through our fourth quarter results, I want to direct your attention to slide eight and address the impact of the IEEPA tariff refunds. First, we received $103 million of tariff refunds from the U.S. government, representing the vast majority of IEEPA tariffs we previously paid, along with $5 million of related interest. Second, we initiated a customer refund program for price increases we previously implemented to recover those tariff costs. Based on our estimated redemption rate, we recorded $85 million of refunds to customers, reflected as a reduction to unallocated sales on our P&L. Slide eight provides additional details on these items, including the interest benefit. All of these impacts are reflected in adjusted EPS and net of a related $8 million non-recurring charge and the tax effect. The net tariff refund impact is $0.11 in the quarter and for the full-year fiscal 2026. For presentation purposes and clarity, all tariff refund activity is being reported in other unallocated items in the P&L. This preserves the presentation of our segment results. With that context, let's turn to our fourth quarter results on slide nine. Fourth quarter reported sales were up 1% versus prior year, with organic sales up 3%. As Blake mentioned earlier, our core sales growth in the quarter was 7%. The currency impact was neutral. Price contributed about 2.5 points to organic growth, with minimal incremental tariff-related pricing as we lapped prior year actions. Full year price realization was similar to the fourth quarter. Price cost was positive in the quarter, and tariff price cost has remained EPS neutral since we implemented tariff-based or tariff-related pricing. Enterprise operating margin, as reported, expanded by 320 basis points year-over-year in Q4. Strong operating performance drove 140 basis points of margin expansion. Additionally, 130 basis points came from tariff refund items, and about 50 basis points came from the Sensia dissolution. The adjusted effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was 20.9%, up from 17.8% last year. This year-over-year increase primarily reflects BEPS Pillar Two, partially offset by higher discrete tax benefits. For the full-year fiscal 2026, our adjusted ETR was 19.6%, in line with our guide. Free cash flow was $602 million in the fourth quarter, up $197 million year-over-year, and free cash flow conversion in the quarter was 139%. Tariff refunds contributed approximately 21 points to conversion. Slide 10 provides an overview of sales and margin performance across our operating segments. As a reminder, segment results do not reflect the impact from the tariff refunds. Intelligent Devices margin of 21.6%, up 180 basis points year-over-year, was driven by higher sales volume, favorable currency, positive price cost, and mix, partially offset by higher compensation. Organic incremental margins were in the mid-40s. Software & Control margin of 34% was up 280 basis points versus prior year, driven by 15% organic sales growth. This segment saw year-over-year incrementals right around 50% on an organic basis. Lifecycle Services margin was 16.4%, better than our expectations, and down 110 basis points year-over-year, primarily reflecting tough prior year comps and project mix. Overall, excluding the impact of the tariff refunds, Rockwell delivered incremental organic margins in the high 30s, reflecting strong operating leverage and underlying growth. Let's move to the next slide, 11, for the adjusted EPS walk from Q4 fiscal 2025 to Q4 fiscal 2026. Core performance contributed $0.40 of year-over-year EPS growth, primarily driven by higher volume, followed by favorable mix and positive price cost, partially offset by higher compensation. Net tariff refund-related items were an $0.11 tailwind. Currency was a $0.10 benefit. Lower share count from our opportunistic share repurchase program contributed a $0.05 benefit. Tax was a $0.15 headwind. All other items were a $0.03 tailwind to EPS. Turning to slide 12, I'll cover a few highlights from our full-year 2026. We entered the year with a strong productivity goal and exceeded it, with productivity contributing meaningfully to our solid margin performance. Our teams continue to execute thousands of actions across the company to simplify how we operate, improve efficiency, and create capacity for growth. In Intelligent Devices, full-year incremental margins were in the high 30s, and the 20% segment operating margin was an expansion of 200 basis points year-over-year on both a reported and organic basis. This improvement was driven by volume growth with good leverage and positive price cost. Software & Control delivered incremental margins in the high 50s, with segment margins expanding by more than 400 basis points year-over-year to 33.8%. This was all about volume growth for Software & Control, and it flowed through nicely. In Lifecycle Services, sales, earnings, and segment margins were essentially flat year-over-year after adjusting for the Sensia dissolution. At the total company level, enterprise operating margin for the full-year was 22.2%, an increase of 330 basis points. Operating performance drove about 270 basis points of margin expansion, and we received a slight full-year benefit from tariff refund items and the Sensia dissolution. Underlying conversion was particularly strong. Excluding the impact of tariff refunds, full-year incremental margins were around 50% on an organic basis. Engineering and development investment remained at about 8% of sales, supporting continued innovation and our long-term growth priorities. Adjusted EPS of $13.42 was up 27% and $1.72 better than the midpoint of our initial guide for the year, including the $0.11 benefit from tariff refunds. Free cash flow conversion was 113% for the year, including a six point benefit from tariff refunds. ROIC was strong, reaching 20.4% on a trailing 12-month basis. Finally, we returned about $1.9 billion to share owners through dividends and share repurchases during the year, while still ending fiscal 2026 at less than 2x leverage. Our capital structure and liquidity remain strong. Moving on to the next slide, 13, and our fiscal 2027 outlook. We expect organic sales growth of 6%-9%, or 7.5% at the midpoint. Reported and organic sales include a 100 basis point benefit from the fiscal year 2026 customer tariff refund program accrual, with strong growth at the midpoint of the guide at 6.5%. The Sensia divestiture represents about a point and a half headwind to reported growth, resulting in expected reported sales growth of about 6% at the midpoint. Our enterprise operating margin guidance is 23%, up almost 100 basis points year-over-year. We expect to achieve about 300 basis points of underlying price in fiscal 2027, and these pricing actions, along with productivity, will help to offset ongoing inflationary pressures. The Sensia dissolution will also give us a slight margin tailwind for the year. Our adjusted EPS guidance is a range of $14.50-$15.50, or $15.00 at the midpoint. At the midpoint of our organic sales growth, we expect incremental margins in the high 30s, excluding tariff refunds. We are also stepping up investments in our advanced manufacturing and digital infrastructure, including construction of our U.S. greenfield facility. We are targeting CapEx spending of about 4% of sales in fiscal 2027. We don't expect a significant impact to depreciation in 2027, as the largest investments won't be put into service until after the fiscal year ends. In terms of the calendarization, as Blake mentioned, we expect a typical sequential decline in Q1, followed by a sequential improvement in subsequent quarters. This is true for both sales and margins as we progress through the year. Now, let me share some additional color on our first quarter. In Q1, we expect total company sales to be up mid-single-digits organically year-over-year, or up low single-digits on a reported basis, with organic incrementals in the mid-30s, and adjusted EPS of around $3.00 per share. From a business segment standpoint, Intelligent Devices organic and reported sales in Q1 are expected to be up mid-single-digits year-over-year, with segment margins up slightly year-over-year. Software & Control organic sales are expected to grow 10%, with margin in the low 30s and incremental margins in the low 40s. Lifecycle Services organic sales are expected to be up slightly year-over-year, while reported sales will be down high single-digits, with segment margin in the mid-teens, above the prior year. For the full-year, Intelligent Devices sales are expected to grow mid-single-digits on an organic and reported basis, with segment margin expanding about 100 basis points year-over-year. Software & Control sales growth is expected to be high single-digits on an organic and reported basis, with margins up slightly year-over-year as we lap some tough comps and absorb inflationary pressures. Lifecycle Services organic sales growth is expected to be up low single-digits, with segment margin up about 100 basis points year-over-year. As a reminder, the Sensia dissolution is a $100 million headwind to revenue, split evenly between Q1 and Q2. Let's turn to slide 14 for our full-year fiscal 2027 adjusted EPS walk. We expect core performance to contribute $1.60 of EPS growth, reflecting the organic growth and margin expansion in our outlook. A lower share count is expected to provide a $0.20 tailwind, while net tariff refund-related items are expected to be an $0.11 headwind. All other items combined are expected to be an $0.11 headwind. We expect our adjusted effective tax rate to be 20% for the year. A few additional comments on fiscal 2027 guidance for your models. Corporate and other expense is expected to be around $120 million. Net interest expense for fiscal 2027 is also expected to be about $120 million. We expect average diluted shares outstanding of about 110.4 million, including approximately $600 million of planned share repurchases during the year. We like the momentum we brought into the year. This team has shown the ability to adjust to the changing environment and continues to drive performance. We are planning to do that again in fiscal 2027. With that, I will turn it back to Blake for some closing remarks before we start Q&A.

Blake Moret: Thanks, Christian. We had a great year, and we see continued growth and expanded profitability in fiscal year 2027. Rockwell has a very strong leadership team in place, with seasoned executives who understand both our traditional sources of value as well as the new ways to win. We are leading a committed team of worldwide employees focused exclusively on industrial automation and digital transformation, complemented by the best partners in the business. Automation Fair and Investor Day are less than two short weeks away in Boston. There has never been an Automation Fair that will showcase more new groundbreaking technology than this one, so I hope to see you there. Aijana will now begin the Q&A session.

Aijana Zellner: We would like to get to as many of you as possible, so please limit yourself to one question and a quick follow-up. Joanne, let's take our first question.

Operator: Just as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from Scott Davis from Melius Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Scott Davis: Hey, good morning, Blake and Christian, Aijana.

Blake Moret: Morning.

Aijana Zellner: Morning.

Christian Rothe: Morning.

Scott Davis: Hey, Blake, early in the comments, you said that you were going to start combining semis and data center into one. It's 10% of revenues. It's pretty material. What do you think the growth rate is of that kind of category? Think in terms of like a five-year growth rate. Just trying to get a sense of what kind of tailwind this is for you guys.

Blake Moret: Yeah. So, we've obviously seen good growth leading up to FY 2027. For FY 2027, as you said, about 10% of the combined verticals, and we expect mid-teens growth for the year. And I expect that to continue, Scott. I mean, it's well-known that people are trying to make products smarter with embedded semiconductors as a part of the bills of material, in addition to data center buildup. And I just don't see that trend slowing down. We grouped the two verticals together because of the large amount of commonality in the applications we're addressing. It's really all about the environmental control of these facilities. With data centers, it's the central utilities plant. In semiconductor, it's the building management systems. And so we think that goes together. And as you said, it's an important part of our business that's growing fast, that's complemented by the continued growth in our traditional areas of value.

Scott Davis: Makes sense. Then, you mentioned, you also used the word project timing, I think specifically with mining, but perhaps maybe a little broader than that, I don't know. To what extent do you think there was an impact on the quarter in anything that you can measure? I actually thought you might come in a little bit higher than 7% on the core, so just trying to get a sense of if there was some timing issues that may have held that back a little bit.

Blake Moret: Yeah, I think specifically in mining, we see a strengthening project funnel, but the delays in CapEx and mining and some of the other industries continues. Again, these are not projects that are being canceled. They're being extended out for the reasons that we've talked about in the past. Mining, I think, has positive growth, as do all of our verticals forecast for fiscal year 2027. We just didn't see it materialize in Q4, but obviously, we're forecasting growth in fiscal 2027. I would say similar to home and personal care, if we look at the hybrid area, there's a lot going on out there, and we are forecasting growth for fiscal 2027.

Scott Davis: Okay. Understood. Best of luck in 2027, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Blake Moret: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Andrew Obin from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Andrew Obin: Yes, good morning. Can you hear me?

Blake Moret: We can.

Andrew Obin: Excellent. Fantastic. So, maybe first question on Lifecycle Services, and obviously, to step back, you guys have really turned this business around over the past couple of years, but you're sort of talking about ARR somewhat being disappointing. I sort of think about ARR in this business linked to various projects related to OPEX. Yes, I think macro is quite good. Can you just maybe step back and tell us what's happening there, and why ARR has disappointed? Thank you.

Blake Moret: Sure. Andrew, I'll start with some of the macro effects, and then I'll talk about what we're doing internally with things that we can control. First of all, the ARR in Lifecycle Services is being affected to some extent by the delays in projects that often will go in with a big initial project, but if we're doing a good job, ARR attached to it. The second is that because a lot of these projects are on digital infrastructure, networks, and cybersecurity and so on, with the inflation that's affected IT equipment in particular, we're seeing the scale being reduced on some of those rollouts. So initially, a food and beverage customer might be looking to roll out a managed services contract at 30 additional plants, and they may cut that in half. That's having some impact. We're certainly fighting for every project that we have the opportunity to participate in, and we're working on the business internally through simplifying our processes to make it easier both to deliver these projects as well as to deliver them very profitably. We do that through the growing trusted content offering, the use of our internal agentic orchestration tools to reduce keystrokes. That's not just a productivity measure, that's also a revenue-getting measure, because if we can quote these things more efficiently, then we'll win more of them. Then, as we've talked about, our investments over the next few years include digital infrastructure to make it easier for customers to place orders for hardware, software, and services simultaneously.

Andrew Obin: Got you. Thank you very much. Maybe to steal a little bit of thunder from the Investor Day next week, but you guys are rolling out, you started to roll out new Logix controllers, I think larger ones this year. You're going to do more in calendar 2027. Can you just tell us, A, what the experience has been with the customers, and B, does it impact sort of the financials that we see from the outside? How does the pace of the rollout sort of impact your reported financials? Thank you.

Blake Moret: Well, to be sure, Andrew, the increased pace of new product introductions and Logix do contribute to the great growth and profitability that we saw in fiscal 2026 and that we expect to continue to see in 2027. So the L9, which is the newest processor, is the highest performance that we've offered. It's seen strong adoption in the market. You'll, of course, see that at Automation Fair. Software-defined automation with the ability to run Logix on an open compute surface will be in full display. Then the other products and enablers, probably at the head of the list, I would point out FactoryTalk Conductor, which applies agentic orchestration to our software tools across control and operator interface. Design, operate, and maintain are all impacted by the ability to simplify engineers' effort to create these systems and then to manage them. It is contributing to the financial results we are seeing because it is helping us gain share, and it is doing it very profitably.

Andrew Obin: Thank you so much.

Blake Moret: See you soon.

Operator: Our next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz from Citi. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Andy Kaplowitz: Hey, good morning, everyone.

Blake Moret: Morning.

Andy Kaplowitz: Blake, your discrete markets look like they continue to accelerate, at least a bit, up 20% overall in the last quarter. It seems like it is pretty broad-based, including automotive. I know you have talked about some ongoing reticence in terms of larger CapEx projects, but it also seems like you have above-average visibility into continued improvement in discrete in 2027. Maybe just a little more color into the drivers of the growth. Obviously, we understand e-commerce and those kind of markets are improving, but just general comments.

Blake Moret: Well, we are winning in automotive. I mean, the mid-teens growth that we saw and the positive outlook going forward is testament to the adoption at both our existing and new customers with our traditional sources of value. They are obviously interested in what AI can do to make them most productive in their manufacturing processes and with the things that Rockwell has developed. I mentioned FactoryTalk Conductor, Emulate3D, but as well as the work that we are doing with partners. I should mention that Rockwell and NVIDIA are collaborating to integrate AI and advanced computing into our platforms and services, and this helps manufacturers in automotive and really across manufacturing support the workforce and expand U.S. productivity and capacity, and that is an important part of the equation as well.

Andy Kaplowitz: Thanks for that, Blake. Christian, could you give us a little more color into the puts and takes of your incremental margin forecast in 2027? I know you said high 30s incrementals despite concerns regarding memory chip inflation out there. I think you already mentioned 3% pricing that continues to be above average versus history. Maybe talk about how Rockwell has evolved to stay ahead on price versus cost and what kind of inflation you are facing, and then maybe anything on the ongoing productivity-focused efforts you have for 2027.

Christian Rothe: Yeah, sure. Absolutely, Andy. As we think about the shape of 2027, as we started out with our discussion today, we've got a sequential down in the first quarter, and then we're going to go into incremental growth as we go through the year, both on a sales and margin perspective. The inflation side has not abated. That is, we still have inflation. The rate of change has come down. The number of notifications that we're getting from our suppliers around those changes in the price that they're selling to us, those have come down. But we still have inflation and are experiencing inflation. The good news is that for the full-year, fiscal 2026, and for the fourth quarter, we did have favorable price cost. And for the 2026 timeframe, it was slightly dilutive to our margins. As we turn the corner and we look at 2027, though, and we think about the pricing actions, that 300 basis points of price that we have in place today that we're expecting to achieve, that should help us to stay apace with what's happening on the inflation side. And the productivity actions, I'm glad you brought that up. We're going to go into that more at our Investor Day, but as you know, this has been an area of a lot of activity within Rockwell over the last couple of years. I talked about thousands of projects and initiatives that are happening inside the organization right now. That list continues to grow, and they're everything from small projects to larger ones. It is not just in the factory. It's also happening with our indirect spending. It's happening with our SG&A spend levels. There's a lot that's occurring. I think the part that's exciting is that it's not just used for cost reduction. That is, we're using it to increase the velocity inside of our business. AI is a really good example of that. AI, yes, there's some soft savings, there's some hard savings. Those hard savings help us to offset some of the incremental costs that we have related to deployment of those technologies. But more importantly, it's driving velocity. We have a number of things you're going to see on the floor at Automation Fair in a couple weeks that were not even necessarily on the project plan to be achieved in fiscal 2026, and the team was able to get those done because of the fact that we were able to get a lot of productivity out of our AI initiatives, especially in the software development side. Really good opportunity for us to continue to drive that velocity, but also expand margins.

Andy Kaplowitz: Appreciate all the color.

Operator: Our next question comes from Julian Mitchell from JPMorgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Julian Mitchell: Hi, good morning. First of all, just wanted to understand a little bit more of the overall organic sales guide. I think you said, Christian, mid-single-digit first quarter, and then you're up for the year, ex-tariffs, I think, 6%-7% at the midpoint, as the comps get easier through the year. Just want to understand, is there something specific in Q1 weighing? It looks like there's a bit of an acceleration through the year afterwards, year-on-year. Is that based off project conversion accelerating? Any thoughts around that, please?

Christian Rothe: Yeah, Julian. We are talking about mid-single-digit growth organically, and that is, of course, taking out the impact of the Sensia dissolution that occurred. There is some seasonality, of course, that happens for us from Q4 into Q1, and then we go and grow from that point. Nothing specifically to call out around anything that we see in the pipeline or project-related that would dramatically change the view or what's happening around the sequentials as we go through the year. I think the way to think about it is that, again, it's just some modest changes from quarter to quarter, but broadly, we feel really good about how the year's shaping up for us.

Blake Moret: Yeah, there's a certain amount of prudence at this point of the introduction of the guide. Hopefully, you're hearing the sentiment that customers are positive about their prospects going forward. We're hearing that from end users across multiple verticals, and we're hearing it from machine builders as well. Their backlog is healthy, and this new innovation gives them opportunities to add value to their own offerings.

Julian Mitchell: That's helpful. Just to put a finer point maybe on what you're seeing at the Logix platform. I think there was a mention of 25% growth recently on the prepared remarks. It looks like you're guiding, I suppose, Software & Control up high single-digits, and Logix probably similar to that, given the ARR guide for the overall company. Maybe help us understand kind of where are we in that PLC or Logix cycle as you see it. How's the kind of inventories and sell-in, sell-out looking on that product, please?

Blake Moret: Sure. Well, you got the numbers right. 25% Logix growth in the fourth quarter. We're expecting Software & Control to be high single-digits in fiscal year 2027, with Logix in that ballpark. This is underlying market demand, as well as share growth. With our traditional offerings, as well as the software that, with Logix, forms a control system, we think we've got the best in the business. Obviously, you'll see a lot of that in the next couple of weeks. In terms of positioning this, as we've talked about in the past, number of units. The number of units have gone above pre-pandemic levels with respect to controllers, but there's still plenty of room to run in this respect. We don't see this impacted by any sort of restock or advanced buying. It's underlying demand, and it's broad-based across the traditional industries, like automotive and food and beverage and life sciences and energy, but also with the demand that we've talked about in semiconductor and e-com and warehouse and data center.

Julian Mitchell: Great. Thank you.

Blake Moret: Thanks, Julian.

Operator: Our next question comes from Nigel Coe from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Nigel Coe: Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for all the details on the FY 2027 guide. I thought it was interesting that we're seeing improving mining, chemical end markets in 2027. I'm guessing that's one of the reasons why you're seeing organic sales growth improving through the year, but maybe just talk about what you see in those end markets and what gives you confidence that that gets better there.

Blake Moret: Sure. Mining, we have talked before, we have got a really good readiness to serve in mining, particularly as the miners are moving to more autonomous operations. That is a great fit. As I and members of the leadership team have had discussions with boards and C-suite at the big miners, there really is a good fit with what we are doing and what they are trying to accomplish in terms of flexibility and throughput and safety. We are seeing that manifest itself in the funnel. A lot of the jobs that we are tracking and some of the wins that we have seen have a distinctly digital aspect to them. It is not just the traditional power control that has been a big part of that vertical penetration in the past. It is also adding the things that Rockwell is uniquely positioned to do. That does inform some of the optimism that we are seeing, but it is backed up by tangible growth and funnel. In chemical, that industry in general is, of course, under a lot of pressure from geopolitical volatility, pricing around the world, and so on. We really focus on finished chemicals, fine chemicals versus bulk. It is a segment of the market, and we do think that we are gaining share in that area as well. Again, we have talked for years about PlantPAx, and as we add AI capabilities to Logix and software around it, that impacts PlantPAx as well.

Nigel Coe: Okay. Thanks, Blake. Just on, to go back to the first quarter guide, Christian, I think incrementals are a bit below the high 30s for Q1. Maybe just correct me if I am wrong there. I am assuming that we have got sort of the worst comp on memory of the year there, so perhaps that is the reason. My real question is memory just an inflation issue, or are there lead times, availability issues to think about as well?

Christian Rothe: Yeah, sure. You are right. When I went through my prepared comments, the incrementals, the organic incrementals for Rockwell Automation in Q1 versus the prior year were at the mid-30s level. So you have that correct. Absolutely, from an inflationary perspective, Q1 is going to be a more difficult quarter. You brought up an important aspect around that, which is there is a difference. There is a difference between what is happening on the inflationary side versus availability. On the inflationary side, memory is a really big driver for us, but it is really a broader drive on kind of a lot of the electrical components. We talked a lot about what is happening in the demand environment around things that are impacted by data center, and so that is why it is a little bit broader of a base there. But memory is, from an inflation side, a bigger portion of it. From the component availability side, we are sitting actually pretty okay on the memory portion of it, but there is other electrical components, things like PCBs, that are a little bit more difficult for us. That being said, our team, the supply chain organization, has done a really good job of making sure that we have gotten ahead of this, that we are getting those components in. That does not mean that it is a one and done, because we, of course, are using these, and these are a lot of the areas that we are getting some really good demand for our products. As we are depleting that inventory, we have got to make sure that we are putting it back into the funnel. Again, the team has done a good job. We are focused on trying to make sure that we are still in a position to keep on shipping, and they have kept us in that place.

Nigel Coe: That is great. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Quinn Fredrickson from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Quinn Fredrickson: Hey, good morning. Blake, wondering if you could frame up how you're thinking about greenfield versus brownfield activity and broader CapEx release. Does the 2027 outlook still contemplate some constraint around broader CapEx spend persists, or do you see more of a broader release this year?

Blake Moret: Yeah. We're not counting on a broadening of CapEx release in the guide. I think if we see more of that would push us more to the high end of the range of our revenue in the year. That being said, the new capacity reached a new high-level mark in fiscal year 2026, and we expect it to go still higher in 2027. You all have asked me in the past what inning do we think that we're in with respect to new capacity in the U.S., and I'd probably characterize it as around the fourth inning. So there's plenty ahead of us there. It's not necessarily greenfield. A lot of this is modernizations, new lines, retrofits in existing building envelopes, but there's still plenty of room to run, and we're winning at a high rate in those activities across multiple industries.

Quinn Fredrickson: That's helpful. Then you talked in an earlier question about ARR and some of the headwinds there, but it does look like you're expecting ARR growth to improve a bit to 7% from 5% this year. Could you just unpack which piece of the business specifically drive that acceleration? Is that principally just a better outlook in Lifecycle Services, or are there any pieces of your software ARR growth that also strengthen?

Blake Moret: Yeah, I think we'll see improvement in both the software and the services element of ARR. For starters, the whole organization recognizes the importance of it, and we've done some things internally to underscore that, as well as continuing to work on near-term business system enhancements that help reduce the friction in things like renewals and being able to make it easier for customers to do things across the portfolio of Rockwell offerings, whether it's things that we've had for a long time or things that we've acquired in recent years. So, I think the business environment for demand for those offerings remains high. Digital services, cloud-native software like Plex and Fiix, we continue to be very happy with the content and the value that comes from that. Now we just have to continue to work on simplifying the motion and making sure that we're getting what's due us in those areas, and that's why we're optimistic about increasing the ARR in the coming year.

Quinn Fredrickson: Thanks.

Operator: Our next question comes from Steve Tusa from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Steve Tusa: Hi. Good morning, guys.

Blake Moret: Hey, Steve.

Steve Tusa: A lot of the questions have been asked, but I think it's really about kind of the top line trends. Two end markets for you that don't necessarily define your company anymore, but are key, auto and food and bev. Looking at the CapEx budgets, it's hard to see growth there. Can you maybe just talk about what's going on in those end markets for not necessarily the next six months, but for the next 12 months and beyond that? Those are kind of been subdued, but potentially could accelerate. Just curious what you're seeing there.

Blake Moret: Sure. Well, automotive, we have seen good growth in the most recent quarters, 15% in Q4, and we're expecting it to continue to be a good source of growth. We're seeing modernizations. We're seeing companies continue to balance their offering by going away from this headlong rush to all EV to building what customers want to buy, which includes internal combustion engine propelled vehicles as well as hybrid vehicles. And those model changes are what drive more than anything else our business there. To be sure, there's still headwinds in that industry, chief among them, uncertainty around tariffs, USMCA tariffs, Section 232s are maybe even a bigger issue for them right now. But we have a great offering, and as I talked about before, it's not just about the traditional PLCs and Intelligent Devices. We're selling more software into these customers, into the tier suppliers, as well as the brand OEMs, and mobile robots. We had double-digit growth in the OTTO mobile robots, and the single biggest served vertical for automotive is automotive. So, the outlook looks good there, both in terms of our offering as well as customers' needs to continue to evolve their offering. And that's about 10% of our business. Food and beverage, about 20% of the business. CapEx has been subdued. Those companies are dealing with, at the top of the list, driving cost out. They've been hit with continuing raw material cost, packaging, and so on. But that's not a bad thing for us because it's efficiency that we're helping them with and broadening the types of applications that we're dealing with. In the past, we've talked a lot about confectionery. We're doing a lot with protein and with obviously GLP-1. That's more life sciences, but that's a great area of growth for us going forward. It's going to change eating habits to some extent, but people are going to still want to eat and drink, and they're going to want more choices in what they buy as more people enter the middle class. We've been talking about that for years, and so we like where we're positioned there. It's just we're not seeing or counting on a sharp increase in CapEx in either of those verticals when we put the guide together. Christian, anything else there?

Christian Rothe: No, I think you summarized it really well.

Steve Tusa: Great. Great color. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Blake Moret: See you soon, Steve.

Aijana Zellner: GM, we will take one more question.

Operator: Certainly. Our last question today comes from Joe O'Dea from Vertical Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Joe O'Dea: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for fitting me in. Just wanted to get a little bit more color on the Intelligent Devices margin in the quarter. It was a particularly strong sequential incremental, and anything with respect to pricing that occurred in the quarter, mix, productivity efforts, and then bigger picture, anything that's underway in terms of some of the traction you're gaining on the margin extension there?

Christian Rothe: Yeah, sure. I'll start, and then I think Blake will probably jump in with some comments. But the Intelligent Devices, yeah, they did have a good quarter. They're still below the long-term corridor that we had put in place of 22%-24%, but having a 20% for the full-year and coming in at 21.6% for the fourth quarter was a really good performance. As you mentioned, yeah, we had some good benefit from pricing that occurred in the quarter. The team's done a great job again on productivity. The Intelligent Devices business is one of those areas that is going to be the largest. It is our largest segment, so it's going to be the largest beneficiary of a lot of our productivity actions. A lot of that aligned really nicely. It didn't hurt that the OTTO AMR business turned to profitability in the fourth quarter as well. So that also took away a detriment to their segment margins that has been in place for the last couple of years. And again, good progress and good development within that business.

Blake Moret: Yeah. We expect to continue to work on the margins in that business, specifically with our OTTO AMRs, but across the portfolio. New product introductions help as well. Being able to provide more value at lower cost is another piece of the equation. Like Software & Control, they have picked up the pace there. Then I would just mention CUBIC, the modular power control offering that we have continues to grow very well and very profitably.

Joe O'Dea: Thank you. I will leave it there.

Aijana Zellner: Great. Well, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining us today.

Operator: At this time, you may disconnect. Thank you.