HNI Corporation Q4 2025 Earnings Call - Steelcase Acquisition Transforms Company, $120M Synergies and Continued Double-Digit EPS Growth

Bella, Conference Operator: Hello. Thank you for standing by. My name is Bella. I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to HNI Corporation Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year End 2025 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt McCall. You may begin.

Matt McCall, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development, HNI Corporation: Good morning. My name is Matt McCall. I’m Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development for HNI Corporation. Thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 results. With me today are Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, and VP Berger, Executive Vice President and CFO. Copies of our financial news release and non-GAAP reconciliations are posted on our website. Statements made during this call that are not strictly historical facts or forward-looking statements, which are subject to known and unknown risks. Actual results could differ materially. The financial news release posted on our website includes additional factors that could affect actual results. The corporation assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. I now please turn the call over to Jeff Lorenger. Jeff?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. 2025 was a seminal year for HNI Corporation. Our members delivered excellent results as we reported a fourth straight year of double-digit non-GAAP EPS growth, despite persistent, soft, and uncertain macro conditions. The positive momentum of our strategies, the benefits of our diversified revenue streams, our ongoing focus on items within our control, and the merits of our customer-first business model continued to deliver strong shareholder value. Late in the year, we completed the acquisition of Steelcase. This combination will not only transform our company, but also the Workplace Furnishings industry. On today’s call, we will review our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results and provide some commentary around our expectations for 2026 and beyond, including the benefits of the Steelcase acquisition.

Before I discuss our recent performance, I want to reflect on the fundamental improvements we have driven at HNI. Our transformation has taken multiple steps and years. I will begin with Workplace Furnishings, where margins have been reset. Three years ago, our legacy Workplace Furnishings business launched a profitability improvement initiative that was instrumental in expanding operating margin nearly 1,000 basis points. In 2023, price-cost recovery, following the period of elevated inflation, drove the first phase of expansion. Since then, multiple portfolio management moves, ongoing network optimization efforts, KII synergies, and the benefits of ramping our Mexico facility have supported consistent profitability improvement. Based on the initiatives already underway, including the recently announced plans to close our Wayland, New York, manufacturing facility, we have line of sight to continued operating margin expansion in the coming years.

Our margin expansion story is increasingly supported by affirming macroeconomic picture in our Workplace Furnishings segment. I will provide more macro commentary later in the call. Shifting to our Residential Building Products segment, our evolution started with the strategic shifts following the great financial crisis. Since then, we have adjusted our cost structure, fully embraced lean manufacturing, and continued to pursue a vertically integrated business model with the leading brands in all product categories. The result was more than 1,000 basis points of operating margin expansion over the decade post-2009. In addition, since 2019, the efficiency, nimbleness, and uniqueness of our Building Products business have supported consistently strong profitability, with sustained operating margins in the mid-to-high teens. This consistency of both margins and cash flow are foundational elements to HNI’s financial strength.

We expect this profitability and cash generation to continue into 2026 and beyond. More recently, our focus in Residential Building Products has shifted to the front end of the business and on driving top-line growth. Structural changes have been implemented to organize around the customer and ensure we have laser-focused go-to-market strategies to support our growth initiatives. These front-end investments are paying off in the absence of cyclical support. In 2025, we reported segment revenue growth of 6%, despite continued weakness in the new home market. We expect to outperform again in 2026. This historical context helps set the stage as we enter the next exciting chapter of the HNI story. The acquisition of Steelcase unites two industry leaders to meet the dynamic marketplace and evolving needs of the workplace and accelerating in-office work trends.

We have brought together two highly respected companies with shared values, talented teams, strong financial profiles, and highly complementary capabilities. Innovation, thought, leadership, and operational excellence, chief among them. This strong foundation, combined with expected synergies, will accelerate our ability to invest in long-term operational enhancements, digital transformation, customer-centered buying experiences, and products to meet evolving customer needs. Our integration efforts are underway. We are leveraging a disciplined and proven approach informed by recent experience, while continuing to build on the iconic brands for which both companies are widely respected. HNI will now have total revenue of more than $5.8 billion, including all synergies. Total adjusted EBITDA will be nearly $750 million, and annual free cash flow will approximately be $350 million.

We are now the market leader in both of our industries, Workplace Furnishings and hearth products. I can report that the integration of the Steelcase acquisition is off to a strong start. Six months following the announcement, we’re even more confident in our move to add Steelcase to the HNI family. The complementary go-to-market nature of the two businesses from a capability, product, brand, customer, and cultural perspective, has been reinforced as we have begun to work together. We also remain confident in our ability to deliver the targeted synergies of $120 million and drive margin expansion at Steelcase. Our current synergy projections are focused on the Americas business and do not include any revenue synergies. Importantly, we are laser-focused on minimizing any front-end disruption across our Workplace Furnishings businesses.

As we have consistently stated, there are no plans to change dealer partnerships, sales forces, or brand distribution. As I’ve been traveling and engaging with our teams, it is clear that this continuity is being received positively by customers, industry influencers, and our dealers. Now, I will turn the call over to VP to provide some additional detail about 2025, discuss our outlook for the first quarter of 2026, and give some thoughts on how we see the full year playing out. I will then provide a longer-term perspective on the opportunities surrounding our businesses before we open the call to your questions. VP?

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Thanks, Jeff. I will start with some additional comments about 2025. Fiscal 2025 non-GAAP diluted earnings per share for our legacy business was $3.74, which increased 22% from 2024 levels. Again, this was our fourth consecutive year of double-digit earnings growth, with the average annual growth rate exceeding 15%. Total net sales for the year increased 12% overall and 6% on an organic basis. Excluding all impacts from Steelcase, full-year adjusted operating margin for HNI expanded 80 basis points, reaching 9.4%. The improvement was driven by volume growth, productivity gains, Kimball International synergy capture, and price cost benefits.

From a segment perspective, in our legacy Workplace Furnishings business, full-year organic net sales increased 6% year-over-year, fueled primarily by the strength of our contract brands and the benefit of an extra week in fiscal 2025. Full-year profitability, excluding the Steelcase stub period, benefited from volume growth, our profit transformational efforts, KII synergy capture, while we continue to invest in future growth initiatives. Full-year non-GAAP operating profit margin expanded 100 basis points year-over-year to 10.5%, as we delivered on our previously stated goal of achieving double-digit operating margin. Non-GAAP operating margin has expanded nearly 900 basis points over the past three years. Looking ahead, we expect revenue growth and margin expansion in our legacy Workplace Furnishings business for the full year 2026, even as we continue to invest to drive growth.

In Residential Building Products, fourth quarter revenue grew more than 10% versus the same period of 2024, driven by the strength in the remodel-retrofit market and the benefits of the extra week. For the full year, revenue increased nearly 6% versus 2024. New construction revenue was flat, with the remodel-retrofit up a double-digit pace with solid volume improvement. Segment non-GAAP operating profit margin in 2025 expanded 60 basis points year-over-year to a strong 18.1%. We remain encouraged about the long-term opportunities tied to the broader housing market, and we continue to invest and grow our operating model and revenue streams. As we look to 2026, we expect modest segment revenue and profit growth, despite ongoing challenges in the new construction market. Overall, as Jeff mentioned, 2025 was an outstanding year for HNI.

Before I move to our outlook, a couple of comments about Steelcase’s impact on the quarter. We completed the acquisition of Steelcase on December 10th, thus, we consolidated Steelcase’s performance for the final 3 weeks of December into our reported results. The second half of December is a lower shipment and production period for our industries. Consequently, that stub period included seasonally lower levels of daily shipment activity, while we’re more than offset by the recognition of full costs and expenses for the period. We excluded this impact from our adjusted results, as it does not provide any fundamental insight into our performance. As Jeff mentioned, the expected timing and magnitude of our projected $120 million of synergies and $1.20 of accretion are unchanged and unimpacted by the stub period. For the 4th calendar quarter, Steelcase generated strong results.

Revenue grew approximately 5% year-over-year, and earnings grew about 9% from the 4th quarter 2024 levels, absent purchase accounting, restructuring, and acquisition-related costs. I’ll transition to our outlook. For 2026, as Jeff mentioned, we expect a 5th year of double-digit non-GAAP EPS growth. Revenue growth is expected to continue while we drive bottom-line improvement. Our network optimization efforts continue to support our ongoing earnings visibility story we’ve been discussing with you. Our favorable 4th quarter ’25 results included accelerating the benefits of these efforts. These initiatives, which include KII synergies, the ramp-up of our Mexico facility, the closure of Hickory, and the planned closure of Wayland, are expected to yield an incremental $0.25-$0.30 over the next 3 years. Approximately $0.10 of this will be recognized in 2026.

Finally, we now are expecting modest EPS accretion from Steelcase in 2026, excluding the impact of purchase accounting. A few additional comments to assist you with your 2026 modeling. Combined depreciation and amortization is expected to be approximately $175 million-$180 million. Interest expense is expected to between $75 million and $80 million. Our tax rate should be approximately 25%. For the first quarter of 2026, we expect total net sales to increase by more than 130% year-over-year. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to decrease slightly from 2025 levels. Temporarily, first quarter earnings pressure is expected to be driven by revenue and expense recognition, timing, and the increased investment.

Modest year-over-year revenue pressure in Workplace is expected to be limited to the first quarter. We expect mid-single digits for the full year. Building Products revenue is expected to be up low single digits for the first quarter and the full year. We expect year-over-year adjusted earnings per share to return in the second quarter and accelerate as the year progresses. Finally, a comment on cash flow and the balance sheet. Post the closing of the Steelcase acquisition, our balance sheet ended the year with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2 times. We expect our cash flow strength to continue and accelerate with the addition of Steelcase. As a result, leverage is expected to return to pre-deal levels in the 1-1.5 times range in the next 18-24 months.

We remain committed to payment of our long-standing dividend and continue to invest in the business to drive future growth. I will now turn the call back over to Jeff for some long-term thoughts and closing comments.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Thanks, VP. Our fourth quarter in 2025 results demonstrate the strength of our strategies and our ability to manage through uncertain macroeconomic conditions while we remain focused on investing for the future. We expect strong results to continue in 2026, driven by our margin expansion efforts, synergy recognition, and continued revenue growth. As we look forward, the timing was right for the acquisition of Steelcase from a strategic, financial, and cyclical perspective. We are increasingly bullish about the Workplace Furnishings demand dynamics as the macroeconomic picture continues to firm. Return to office continues to be a positive driver of activity, with levels of remote work expected to continue to fall in 2026. Office leasing activity established a new post-pandemic high in the fourth quarter, with annual leasing activity up more than 5% for the full year, 2025.

Net absorption of office space, which has historically been a leading indicator of future industry demand, was meaningfully positive in the second half of 2025. In fact, JLL believes a new expansionary cycle in the office space has begun. While new supply of office space will remain a headwind, we see multiple cyclical drivers of growth outside of new construction. Moving to housing, headlines continue to point to ongoing softness, especially in the new build space. Interest rates remain relatively elevated, prices remain high, and affordability remains low. As a result, we expect continued new construction weakness in 2026. However, our structural changes and growth investments should allow us to continue to outperform the market. In Remodel Retrofit, we are assuming modest growth in 2026. This is consistent with the LIRA projections.

In addition, we expect continued market outperformance in our R&R business, and importantly, we expect ongoing margin and cash flow consistency in this segment. Finally, our optimism continues to build around the addition of Steelcase to the HNI family. As I stated earlier, we are confident in our projected synergies of $120 million and accretion of $1.20. As VP mentioned, we now expect modest accretion in 2026. We enter 2026 a transformed and fundamentally stronger organization. Upon recognition of all targeted synergies, the profile of HNI will include substantially higher earnings, stronger margins, greater cash flow, and a continued strong balance sheet. This will enable us to deliver exceptional value to our shareholders, customers, dealers, members, and communities. Thank you again for joining us. We will now open the call to your questions.

Bella, Conference Operator: At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Reuben Garner with The Benchmark Company. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, The Benchmark Company: Thank you. Good morning, guys.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Morning.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, The Benchmark Company: maybe to start, just the clarification about the outlook for the year, given the stub period and your efforts to kind of show what the underlying business did in the fourth quarter. Are the revenue and double-digit earnings growth comments for next year, are they off of the base without Steelcase or the base with Steelcase?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Perfect, Ruben. I’ll kind of walk through the pieces. If you look at the, you know, on the face of the $3.46, that’s including the Steelcase stub, as well as all the purchase accounting, which is close to $4.6 million a headwind. If you take out the purchase accounting, it’s $3.53. That’s what you’re gonna wanna compare to for the future years, ’cause that’s what ran through the P&L. If that specific number is gonna actually be up 16%, if you talk about the growth. If you look at the $3.74, that’s excluding purchase accounting and the Steelcase stub period.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, The Benchmark Company: The double-digit growth for 26 would be off of which one of those three numbers?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: $3.53.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, The Benchmark Company: Perfect. Okay. Your comments about Workplace Furnishings in the first quarter, I don’t think I heard you mention whether, you know, just seeing what’s happening in some of the major cities in the Northeast and knowing that, you know, New York in particular is playing a role, is that in the recovery, is that driving the kind of flattish, I think you said, first quarter? What gives you confidence about the acceleration that you’re expecting as the year progresses in the mid-single digit, full year, full year guide? Is there any kind of backlog or order numbers from Steelcase and HNI legacy that kind of gives you confidence in a pretty meaningful acceleration as the year moves on?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Yeah, Ruben, that’s a good question. I mean, you know, weather is always can impact. We don’t really hang our hat on that. I mean, I think it probably has some impact. It’s been a little choppy, even in the fireplace business, you know, the hearth business, ’cause they are outside, you know, and getting the homes to install. There’s a little tent up there, probably in a little headwind. The, you know, bottom line is, both when you look at Legacy and Steelcase, we’ve got really, you know, strong, healthy activity, bid counts, both number and dollars, particularly in the contract side or in the high teens. The funnel, you know, our funnel metrics are up in count and in dollars, and particularly in large projects, over $5 million.

I’d say these are consistent across what I would call both Legacy and the Steelcase business, if you look at it. That’s what’s kind of driving, you know, our confidence, you know, in addition to the macro topics that I talked about, you know, firming up on office and net absorption and things like that. You got that going on, macro, and micro, internally, we see these bid numbers and pre-sale activity numbers all trending, you know, nicely positive.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, The Benchmark Company: Jeff, you’ve had a little over 60 days, I think, if my math’s right, since the deal’s closed, that you’ve been able to kinda get in and meet with people, see how they do things. What have you learned, you know, what kind of has surprised you to the upside or downside? What opportunities do you think you’ve kind of developed or seen over the last couple of months?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Yeah, it’s a good question, Ruben. I’ve spent a lot of time with the teams in Grand Rapids and a lot of time in the market. I would say, you know, first of all, confidence continues to grow on why we, you know, we did this transaction. If you look at the customer reach and the complementary nature of the brands and the geographies go to markets, the talented teams are working well together. We’re out of the gates quick. I would tell you that the positive response we’ve seen from customers, dealers, sales force, influencers, basically, people in the value chain, as I’ve gone out in the market and talked to them, are very positive on this combination.

That’s been. I mean, we predicted that to be the case, but actually going to talk to customers in their locations and hearing the questions they ask and the enthusiasm they’ve shown, you know, for this, it’s been, you know, it’s been really strong.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, The Benchmark Company: All right, thanks. I’m gonna sneak one more in. I’m not gonna count that first one as a full question. The space, your outlook for low single-digit growth is super encouraging, very impressive, given how you performed in 25. It looked like you changed some things up about how you’re selling or displaying the product down at the Builder’s Show a couple of weeks ago. I guess, talk about what’s driving your outperformance of the industry. There’s not a lot of categories in building products, talking about kind of even flattish volume environments for this year. For you guys to do it on top of what you did in 25, something has to be working for you. Can you just kind of dig into what you’re doing there?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Yeah, well, VP can comment on us as well. I mean, I think we’ve started to talk about this a while ago, you know, Ruben, which is, you know, really getting closer to the builders and the customer, engaging in the market, being laser-focused on, you know, what we can bring to the table for our customers. It’s early days, but it’s being really well received. I mean, we’ve got a great product lineup. We, you know, we hit all price points, all fuel types. As we get in and engage more specifically from a manufacturer side alongside our industry, you know, best-in-class distribution partners, the two things are really starting to have an impact.

Combine that with the service model that we have in our, in our own, you know, our, our large installing distributors, independent and our FHH, it, you know, what I would tell you is it’s moving the needle. We got a good product pipe we’re talking about in the electric category, and all these things are really starting to catch hold. I think that’s really what’s going on. I mean, it’s nothing more than really customer intimate focus, you know, where customers wanna be met, whether it be, you know, in the R&R segment or in the new home segment. I don’t know, VP, if you got any other...

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Yeah, Jeff, I’d add, the way we measure this, Reuben, is you know, everybody sees the news of permits down 7% year to date. They see contracting markets. We actually measure it market by market. The initiatives that Jeff’s talking about, the intimacy, we can see that we’re seeing better results on that. Those are share gains. In some cases, getting more fireplace spec. It’s the controlling the controllables. On the remodel side, we’ve done a nice job on the stove side of our business. We’ve gone to a single brand to consolidate it. We’ve been able to get a lot more reach into the retail and the big box. That was an area for growth that’s inside the numbers as well. The long-term investments are paying off.

We still have a lot more to do and to get to more markets and more builders, but we certainly are not falling victim to a down 7% permit number.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, The Benchmark Company: Great. Thanks for the detail, guys. Congrats on the strong close to the year and the strong outlook. The stock market’s being a bit irrational today, but I assume all this will work itself out, and good luck in 2026.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Thank you.

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Thanks, Ruben.

Bella, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Ramsey with Thompson Research Group. Please go ahead.

Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Hey, good morning, everyone. I wanted to start on the synergy number, $120 million being America’s focus. Couple things on that. First, I would given your past execution, I think there could be upside to that. I’m curious kind of what points or targets you would need to reach to potentially raise that down the road. Secondly, it being America’s focus seems to imply that Steelcase international is still projected to be a negative offset. Could that be a source of upside in the future?

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Perfect, Steven. I’ll take it kind of in 2 pieces. The first, the $120 million that we originally announced is through our disciplined approach that we’ve learned through the KI process. You heard Jeff say we’re still comfortable with that number. It takes every bit of 3-6 months to get, you know, the team working on the specific projects of, you know, how we’re going to go execute it, which is why I’ve talked about accretion of $0.60 in the 2nd year once these projects are up and running. To your question about timing, you know, 6 months in, if we’ve learned more, we’ll share more. Right now, we’re focused on making sure we understand the buckets between procurement, logistics, SG&A, and network optimization, and that we’ll share with you as we learn more as we go.

I think the key thing from the last time we talked is we expected it to be neutral in year one. Now that we’re in there, this is actually going to be modestly accretive in year one. That’s really good, considering the capital structure and the additional shares that were issued, that it doesn’t change our total target, but it shows that we’ll start seeing the benefits of a little quicker. That’s kind of question one. Question two on international, this, that is not offsetting anything. This $1.20 stands on its own. The international business has very good assets.

You know, as Jeff said, you know, with the business and the teams working together, we’re getting up to speed on that business, whether it’s APAC or EMEA, we’re getting lots of insight of, you know, how the business and their go-to-market and their advantages. I’d tell you, the teams are energized right now to drive profit improvement plans. They’re in place in all of those areas, and that will not be a drag on the $1.20.

Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Okay. That’s great color. wanted to think about the resi growth investment, and you talked about that being a consistent margin. Is the implication that 2026 resi margin is flattish with sales up, and is there a cadence for the year on the resi margin profile?

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Yeah, I think that’s the right way to think about it, Steven. You know, that business is extremely flexible in profitability, as you’ve seen it, from whether it’s $500 million or $850 million, it tracks between the 17%, 18%. We are gonna continue to make the investments Jeff was talking about, with, you know, builder and getting closer to the builder. We would expect those margins with the revenue growth to stay right around the same area.

Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Okay. Then maybe you can share a bit more on the resi growth investments and if those have shifted in the last year or so as you’ve started making those. It’s clearly working and it sounds like you’re saying it’s geared towards builders, yet R&R is the growth driver. Maybe you can kind of connect the dots there on the investments being more to builders, but the growth being from R&R.

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things on this one, Steven. One, when we talk about investments, this has been a 3-year journey. You know, the operational excellence of this business is what’s allowed us to deliver the results. You know, in the last 3 years, we’ve moved to a front-end structure. We’ve brought in leaders running each of these business units that bring those front-end points of view, and they’re the ones leading the charge in each of the intimacy models in both new home and existing home. We’ve also made a significant amount of investments in product and innovation. You know, part of this success and our offset against the market is we are entering new categories and new areas. You know, specifically, an example would be, you know, wood stoves and DIY.

That’s a large market we didn’t have a place in, so we’re making investments with go-to-markets there. It’s allowing us to do it, as well as what Jeff said on the electric side. I think you’re seeing investments on the new home and the remodel side as well, and they just pace to how they come in through the revenue streams are not always at the same time.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Yeah, I think it’s a great point. I also we’re getting really good at I think someone else mentioned it, the IBS show, you know, is a different look from what we’ve had in the past. We’re connecting more to designers, you know, interior designers. I mean, there’s a lot of focus there relative to design as well, Steven. It’s kind of across the board, and I lump it all back to getting much closer and intimate with our geographic areas, design trends, you know, customer, you know, intimacy, and all the while working that with the changes VP talked about. It’s been a couple, 3-year run. It’s starting to pay dividends. We’re going to keep investing.

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: That’s all helpful color. Thank you.

Bella, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Greg Burns with Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead.

Greg Burns, Analyst, Sidoti & Company: Morning. I was just hoping to get a little bit more color on the profit headwinds in the first quarter. You know, what exactly are they, and why are they gonna be rolling off as we move through the balance of the year?

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Yeah, Greg, it first starts with just the timing of the revenue. It’s a little choppy on kinda how some of the contract side of the business, everything that Jeff talked about on the backdrop is all good and favorable for us. You know, if I look at even how orders came in in the fourth quarter, the workplace was actually up 5%, and Steelcase is actually showing up good order trends as well. It’s just the timing of when that stuff’s gonna shift. The revenue is the first piece, and we have a couple comps just from last year that we’re up against. It’s why we do believe it’s a short-term issue and the full year is more important. I think on the expense side, there’s really two things happening.

Bringing in the Steelcase family, there’s a comp timing that’s hitting in the first quarter that, you know, would have hit in the second quarter under their P&L, so that’s a little bit expense pressure. We’re still balancing our investments. We’re still making sure that, you know, we’re thinking about the long game, and the macroeconomics tells us still to keep investing. I think the revenue growth, the timing of the expense, and us continuing investment puts the short-term pressure. More importantly, as we go through the year, you’re gonna see the double-digit EPS growth accelerate in Q2, Q3, and Q4 based on not only volume, but the visibility story we’re talking about.

Greg Burns, Analyst, Sidoti & Company: Okay, great. I think last quarter, you called out, some hospitality orders or the timing on hospitality orders. Could you just maybe update us on the hospitality market and if there’s any change there?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: No, there is not. The hospitality market is solid. We, you know, we were up against the comp, but look, similar to the contract market, pipeline is strong. A business is making investments, performing well. They have a, you know, market leader position in room furniture, and so we like that business a lot, and we expect that it’ll perform at or above prior year, so.

Greg Burns, Analyst, Sidoti & Company: Okay. All right, great. Thank you.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Thanks.

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Thanks.

Bella, Conference Operator: Your last question comes from the line of David MacGregor with Longbow Research. Please go ahead.

David MacGregor, Analyst, Longbow Research: Yes, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess from our dealer conversations this quarter, it’s pretty clear that demand for design support has accelerated pretty dramatically. Just wondering if you can talk about the amount of work that you believe is developing in the pipeline, but maybe not yet in the order backlog, and how you’re thinking about the timing of that work converting to orders and then to sales dollars?

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Yeah, that’s the question, isn’t it, David? I think you’re hearing the same stuff that we’re seeing, which is there is a lot of, there’s a lot of activity. It’s, I believe it’s real, and we’re actually just to get upstream on that a little bit, a lot of our businesses are deploying additional resources to help dealers and customers get things through the pipe because that does become a backlog area relative to the ability to get things designed. We’re also working on some AI tools and some other digital tools to be able to help that as well, you know, for the long game.

Look, we historically, this business has had a pretty stable conversion kind of spec to order cycle, and post-COVID, it’s been a little bit all over the map, and it hasn’t really settled down. I would tell you that once these things start and you see the commitment, particularly on the larger projects, they come in. It’s just sometimes they don’t fall perfectly in the areas. The other thing that we’re seeing with the Steelcase acquisition is their exposure to the large stuff that, you know, once it gets lit, it goes, it’s robust. We’re still working with them on how they view their timing and predict the order to revenue cycles and the spec to order cycles.

I can’t really give you a great answer on a, it’s 90 days or it’s 60 days, or it’s 30 days. You know, it’s real and it’s volatile relative to when it gets put in. We’re bullish.

David MacGregor, Analyst, Longbow Research: Yeah. Yeah, it’s out there. There’s no doubt about it.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Yeah.

David MacGregor, Analyst, Longbow Research: The second question, my second question really just around the discussion around synergies. You know, you talk about the $120 million, you know, it seems like you’re bumping the 2026 expectation a little bit, and I’m mindful that you haven’t made any change to the $120. I guess the question is: Is the better outlook on 2026 a function of maybe incremental synergies that you’ve identified, or is it really timing? I guess related to that is the whole discussion around commercial synergies, which I fully understand why you don’t want to get into too much detail around that at this point. I’m wondering if you can just discuss it at a very high level, just kind of the actions you’re taking to facilitate, you know, the eventual capture of those commercial synergies.

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Yeah, I’ll take the first part of that, David. The timing and the $ of year 1 actually hasn’t changed as it relates to the synergies. We had predicted a little bit more transition costs and some offsets in our original accretion analysis as you put the businesses together. It’s just as a result, we’ll just get a little bit more of that 2-year look of $0.60 a little bit earlier. I would tell you that our philosophy hasn’t changed, and our approach hasn’t changed, you know, as we’ve set that number.

David MacGregor, Analyst, Longbow Research: Yeah.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Yeah, David, on the synergies, yeah, you’re right, it’s early days. What I would tell you, though, as I’ve traveled, you know, we’re seeing some nice, what I would call organic connections between our networks to support revenue synergies, particularly with some of our open line brands. That, you know, when that formalizes more and gets more structure to it, we’re gonna kind of let it play out a little bit and see kind of how the natural system works. Then we can look more at that. Look, I mean, we see some organic pull for some of that revenue. It’s early days, we’ll probably be talking about that down the road.

Right now, I’m encouraged by what I see.

David MacGregor, Analyst, Longbow Research: Can I squeeze maybe one more in? Just maybe, for the model, if you will, working capital in 2026 and how we should be modeling working capital.

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Yeah, we’re gonna. You know, we benefited, you know, with the pulling on the Steelcase balance sheet. We’re actually sequentially improved a little bit. Just with the timing of expenses, we’re gonna need to make a little bit of an investment, David, but not significant, you know, when you think about the net working capital as we go into 2026 and beyond. But I think one more comment there, though, the operational discipline inside of the HNI piece, as we bring into that balance sheet, I would tell you there’s opportunity as we get into the out years.

David MacGregor, Analyst, Longbow Research: Got it. Thanks very much. Good luck with everything.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Thank you.

VP Berger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HNI Corporation: Thanks.

Bella, Conference Operator: That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Lorenger for closing remarks.

Jeff Lorenger, Chairman, President, and CEO, HNI Corporation: Hey, thank you for joining us today and your interest in HNI. We look forward to speaking with you again in April. Have a great day.

Bella, Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.