Karman Space & Defense Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call - Raises 2026 Guide as Backlog Tops $1B, Doubles Down on Capacity and M&A

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: I’d now like to turn the call over to Steven Gitlin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham2: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Karman Space & Defense’s fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. I’m Steven Gitlin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, and I’m pleased to welcome you today. Joining me on today’s call are Ian K. Walsh, our new Chief Executive Officer, Tony Koblinski, our Director and former Chief Executive Officer, Mike Willis, our Chief Financial Officer, and Jonathan Beaudoin, our Chief Operating Officer. Before we begin, please note that on this call, certain information presented contains forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions and that involve risks and uncertainties. These are described on page 2 of the earnings presentation we posted to our website this afternoon and in detail in Karman’s reports filed with the SEC and the Form 8-K filed today with the SEC.

I’d also like to note that we will discuss a number of non-GAAP financial measures today. Our press release, which we filed today, can also be found under the heading News & Events on the Investors section of our company website and contains a reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measure to the most comparable GAAP measure. The content of this conference call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, March 25, 2026. The company undertakes no obligation to make any revision to any forward-looking statements contained in our remarks today or to update them to reflect the events or circumstances occurring after this conference call. Now I would like to turn the call over to Ian K. Walsh.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Well, thank you, Steve, and good afternoon. I’m excited to be with you all today as I assume my new role with Karman. I’m honored to have the opportunity to lead this impressive team and to represent them with more than 80 customers across the entire space and defense landscape. Karman’s market position, described on page 3, and its track record of success, combined with its winning profitable growth algorithm, make this a very special company and a compelling opportunity. I’ve been working in defense for over 30 years, and I can’t remember the last time I was this excited. Karman’s deep engineering expertise and vertically integrated full-spectrum manufacturing capabilities position the company as a unique enabler for national security and the growing space economy. Karman’s values resonate with me, and none of them more than be relentless.

Given that this is my first week in the role, I’ve asked Tony to summarize the strong financial and operational results the Karman team delivered in 2025 under his leadership. Tony?

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham2: Thank you, Ian K. Walsh. It’s great to have you as part of Karman, and I wish you tremendous success as you lead this team to new heights. Before I begin, I want to express my deep appreciation to our board, our employees, our shareholders, and our customers for the trust you have placed in me and in the Karman team. Together, we have worked hard to make a meaningful difference for our customers, and in doing so, we’ve created significant value for both our employees and our shareholders. Leading Karman has truly been a tremendous capstone on my career. Over the past several months, as the board conducted a comprehensive search for my successor, we had the opportunity to meet a number of outstanding candidates. Ian K. Walsh clearly stood out. We are fortunate he chose to join Karman, and I look forward to supporting him in my role as a director.

I’m confident you will quickly appreciate his experience, leadership, and ability to guide Karman through its next phase of growth. As for me, after a 44-year business career, I’m looking forward to taking things a little slower, spending time with my family, and having a different kind of fun. Now, turning to today’s call, I’ll begin with highlights from our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. Mike Willis will then provide more detail on our financial performance and capital allocation priorities. Jonathan Beaudoin will follow with an update on how we are expanding capacity to meet accelerating demand, and Jonathan will close with his strategic outlook and guidance. We’ll then open up the call for your questions. Now let’s turn to our results. Our team delivered another quarter of record performance, driven by outstanding execution across the business and strong momentum following our February 2025 IPO.

As shown on page four of our earnings presentation, key fourth quarter highlights include record quarterly revenue of $134 million with growth across all three end markets, record gross profit of $54 million, adjusted EBITDA of $42 million, another quarterly record for Karman, and backlog reached an all-time high of $801 million. For the full year, we also delivered record financial results with revenue and adjusted EBITDA ahead of the updated guidance we gave two months ago as part of our Seemann and MSC acquisition announcement. Full-year revenue was $472 million, gross profit $190 million or 40% of revenue, and record adjusted EBITDA of $145 million. At the same time, we executed on a disciplined and strategic M&A agenda.

During 2025, we completed three acquisitions, MTI, ISP, and Five Axis, adding capabilities in advanced metallic solutions for extreme environments, energetic deployment systems, and precision solutions for liquid rocket engines. In January, we further expanded our platform with the acquisition of Seemann Composites, extending our reach into maritime defense with long-standing positions on Columbia, Virginia, and Seawolf-class submarine programs. These businesses also deepen our expertise in composites and advanced materials, capabilities we will leverage across the entire Karman portfolio. Page 5 summarizes the four acquisitions completed since our IPO and the capabilities they bring to the company. Taken together, these actions position Karman exceptionally well to meet what we believe is a generational increase in demand across missiles, interceptors, hypersonics, UAS, counter-UAS, maritime defense, as well as space and launch.

For example, multiple prime contractors have recently outlined significant planned annual production increases across key missile programs we support, including approximately 100% growth in AIM-9X, 200% in THAAD and Standard Missile, and 300% for PAC-3. We expect these programs to achieve their production rate goals over the coming years. This is a demand environment that we expect to persist through the end of the decade and beyond. Importantly, because this demand is tied to national security priorities, we believe it will continue to receive strong bipartisan support. In response to the demand signals, we have been proactive in expanding both capabilities and our capacity. Today, Karman operates across eight states with more than 1 million sq ft of design development and manufacturing space.

Our recently announced launch systems and nozzle manufacturing hub in Salt Lake City will further enhance our ability to support customer needs while positioning us closer to our key customers. We have a great deal to be proud of coming out of 2025 and even more to look forward to in the years ahead. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Mike for a more detailed financial review.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Thank you, Tony. Q4 was another strong quarter in which our team continued to demonstrate its focus on supporting our customers. Shown on page 6, highlights include revenue of $134 million, represented a 47% increase compared to fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024. Gross profit grew 54% to $54 million, increasing gross profit margin at 40%. Net income rose over 300% to $8 million. Adjusted EBITDA jumped to $42 million at 59% year-over-year increase. Adjusted EPS more than tripled to $0.11 per diluted share from $0.03. Backlog grew 38% year-over-year to $801 million. For clarity, our numerical calculation and definition of backlog has not changed. We simply updated the terminology from funded backlog to backlog to better align with industry practice. Growth extended across all 3 of our end markets in the fourth quarter.

Shown on page number seven, hypersonics and strategic missile defense, or SMD, revenue grew 42% year-over-year to $48 million, driven by expanded strategic missile programs, continued progress on NGI, higher volumes on classified programs, and increased activities supporting hypersonic testbeds. Space and launch jumped 25% to $36 million, driven by the timing of orders for critical content supporting both legacy and emerging launch providers. Tactical missiles and integrated defense systems, or IDS, was up 77% to $50 million, primarily driven by demand associated with the continued proliferation of advanced drone and loitering munitions and an increase in production rates for GMLRS. End market mix in the fourth quarter was as follows. Space and launch represented 27% of quarterly revenue, hypersonics and SMD 36%, and tactical missiles and IDS 37%. For the full fiscal year 2025, revenue of $472 million represented a 37% increase compared to 2024.

Gross profit grew 44% to $190 million, resulting in a gross profit margin of 40%. Net income rose 37% to $17 million. Adjusted EBITDA jumped to $145 million, a 37% year-over-year increase. Adjusted EPS nearly tripled to 37 cents per diluted share from 13 cents. End market mix for the year was as follows. Space and launch represented 32% of annual revenue, hypersonics and SMD 32%, and tactical missiles and IDS 36%. Moving forward, we will report a fourth end market beginning in the first quarter of 2026. Maritime Defense Systems will capture Karman’s existing maritime programs and those of Seemann and MSC. We expect our four end markets to be relatively balanced in terms of revenue with no discernible seasonality.

On the topic of seasonality, Karman, like many other companies in our industry, experienced a temporary slowdown in contracting activity during the fourth quarter of 2025, extending into the first quarter of 2026 due to the federal government shutdown. We continue to have discussions with our customers on program production needs and ramp-ups that are expected to materialize once contracts are let. Turning now to the balance sheet, we continue to prioritize growth as we consider capital allocation decisions. We ended the fourth quarter with $34 million in cash and equivalents, up $22.5 million from year-end 2024. We invested a total of $20 million in CapEx during the year to support growth, prioritizing new manufacturing equipment and floor space, including our Decatur, Alabama facility, our advanced clean room in Mukilteo, and our energetics testing complex in Skagit.

With our acquisition of Seemann Composites, our total debt increased to $768 million with an interest rate of SOFR plus 2.75%, an improvement of 75 basis points. We continue to expect our leverage ratio to decline to approximately three times adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2026. Earlier this month, we increased our revolving credit facility from $50 million to $150 million to provide added flexibility as we expand capacity to meet anticipated surge in demand. Looking ahead, we expect a statutory tax rate for fiscal year 2026 of 25.5%, and now expect CapEx to be approximately 5% of revenue, equivalent to approximately $36 million. Note that we increased our CapEx rate to expand our capacity for the anticipated volume increase that Tony discussed.

Now, I’ll turn the call over to Jonathan for a discussion of our operations and capacity expansion initiatives.

Jonathan Beaudoin, Chief Operating Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Thank you, Mike. The demand environment that Tony described places our focus squarely on continued effective execution and the strategic deployment of capital to expand our capacity and meet the requirements of our customers. We are prudently investing in advance of contract receipt to ensure we enable the anticipated ramp in customer demand. Karman was formed to produce qualified, proven systems at a rate that supports our customers’ significant production output goals. We combine our deep understanding of real-world end-user requirements with the most advanced material and manufacturing technologies, and then add the operating tools for efficient, scaled production. Karman essentially provides the agility and technology of a small business with the capacity and investment horsepower of a large business. It is exactly what our customers need to meet their mission requirements and production ramp-ups.

We are frequently asked about potential capacity constraints, and we are fortunate to be able to rapidly respond and ensure that we are ready for current and future rates. We think of our capacity in 4 separate but related categories. First, the physical space and equipment with which we develop, test, and manufacture products. We now have over 1 million sq ft under roof. Tony mentioned our plans for a new Salt Lake City manufacturing hub, which will add nearly 200,000 sq ft, quadruple our production capacity for loitering UAV launch systems, and add valuable, redundant nozzle manufacturing capacity. We expect this site to achieve initial operational capability in the fourth quarter of this year. We invested the majority of our $20 million in CapEx last year on capacity expansion projects at various sites.

In addition, as we recently announced, we are equally co-investing with the government a total of $10 million to expand nozzle production capacity. These nozzles are key subsystems for solid rocket motors, which propel most missiles and many hypersonic systems. Next, we are well-positioned to accelerate hiring and expand our talent base to drive increased output. Our workforce grew significantly in 2025 from 1,100 to 1,400 employees. This growth was fueled primarily by strategic acquisitions. We have enhanced our recruiting capabilities by adding experienced recruiters and expanding our calendar of recruiting events, enabling us to more effectively identify and attract top talent. Additionally, our presence across eight states broadens and diversifies our talent pool, further strengthening our ability to attract top talent.

Third, we’re carefully monitoring our supply chain to identify any potential bottlenecks well before they can interrupt production and are making strategic moves to strengthen our position. Acquiring ISP last year helped us secure energetic formulations for multiple solutions we deliver to our customers. We are applying Karman’s MG Resin technology to tactical missiles and hypersonic systems, improving supply chain robustness. Our acquisition of Seemann and MSC provides us with deeper and expanded composite expertise, resin formulations, and woven fabrics. Fourth, we are rolling out our Karman Operating System company-wide. This platform integrates our ERP system with advanced manufacturing execution and asset monitoring tools. By leveraging AI-enabled technologies, we expect to increase throughput, minimize downtime, improve yield, enhance workplace safety, and automate administrative tasks while allowing us to focus our resources where they matter most.

As an example, we can now monitor real-time data for most of our specialized manufacturing equipment across multiple states and sites. These data, as well as historical data, can be interrogated with AI to determine choke points and develop action plans for improving utilization and ultimately increasing capacity. In the near future, we will be able to monitor all of our key manufacturing equipment to proactively prescribe preventative maintenance, speed repairs, and evaluate utilization rates by site, program, device, shift, and operator. Our integration of acquired companies is proceeding according to plan. Earlier this month, we held a welcome event at our Greenville, South Carolina, and Gulfport, Mississippi, sites. We were thrilled by the spirit and enthusiasm of the more than 200 teammates who attended our events. We expect to complete the integration of Seaman and MSC by the fourth quarter of this year.

We have come a long way, and there is much work ahead, but we are well-prepared to support our customers’ aggressive production ramp plans. Now I’ll turn the call back to John for his comments on 2026 and beyond.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Well, thank you, Jonathan. Karman’s financial and operational execution has been tremendous. Our position as a merchant supplier to nearly all prime contractors in the U.S. space and defense market differentiates us and defines our unique value proposition. Complementing strong organic growth with strategic acquisitions has continued to strengthen our competitive position, deepening existing capabilities and adding adjacent ones.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: This model and the performance of the team provide evidence that Karman is a new kind of space and defense company. The demand environment could not be more favorable for Karman. Tony mentioned the dramatic production increases planned for many programs Karman supports. Having led growth businesses in the past and made critical capital allocation decisions, I’m eager to lean in and help our customers achieve their multi-year goals through focused investment strategies and consistent performance. Our 2026 outlook reflects the near-term growth we anticipate, summarized on page 8. We now expect full-year revenue of $715 million-$730 million and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA of $207 million-$218 million. This represents 53% year-over-year revenue and 46% adjusted EBITDA growth, an additional growth above our previously communicated 2026 guidance given this past January.

We continue to expect revenue growth to be roughly split between organic and inorganic. We also expect our first half to represent approximately 45% of total revenue and adjusted EBITDA for the year, with sequential quarterly growth similar to that of last year. While we have confidence that additional growth vectors such as Golden Dome will materialize, timing of those remains uncertain. Strong market conditions and the Seaman and MSC acquisition expanded our backlog to more than $1 billion, providing approximately 80% visibility to the midpoint of our full-year revenue guidance range as of March 20, 2026. We remain confident in our long-term outlook of strong organic growth supplemented by strategic accretive acquisitions. This is a proven formula that has driven remarkable growth and profitability for the past three years. I’m focused on maintaining Karman’s trajectory in the coming years.

Thank you all for your time today. I’ll be learning more about our company, the people, and the technology that have made it successful as I visit our primary locations in the coming weeks. I look forward to meeting our shareholders and the analysts who follow us. I’m excited to lead this incredible organization at this important moment for our company, our industry, and our nation. Now let’s open up the call for questions.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, at which point you may return to the queue for an additional two questions. Your first question comes from the line of Peter Arment with Baird. Your line is open.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham1: Hey, thanks. Good afternoon, and congrats, Tony. Thanks for all your support over the last year. Really enjoyed it. Ian, congrats on the new role. Hey, could you guys talk a little bit about, you know, what we’re seeing potentially with multiyear frameworks for the primes on ramping up on not only interceptors, but, you know, missile production and how that might impact, you know, whether you guys are going to be part of those agreements, given your customer relationships there and just how we might think of that. Thanks.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: This is John. Thank you, Peter. Appreciate the question. I guess the way I would address that is to say, as time continues to march forward, we continue to have a little bit more clarity on how these frameworks are going to be implemented. Certainly, Karman will benefit from the outcomes of the frameworks. That being said, we still, I think, will need to work a little bit further with the primes to understand specifically what the demand profile is going to look like over what period of time. If you think about the significant increases in production rates that are contemplated within those frameworks, you know, we don’t see any of that really materializing in the form of orders for Karman until at the earliest, say, the fourth quarter of this year.

We really don’t see that there’s a lot of that in the 2026 guidance that we provided, but certainly we see that starting to materialize in 2027 and beyond.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham1: Okay. Thanks, John. Just a broader question maybe, Mike, for just on capacity. You had talked about CapEx 5% of revenues. Could you just remind us, you know, where capacity utilization stands today and your ability to kind of meet all the demand signals? Thanks again.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. You know, it’s always one that’s tough to put a number on. Depends on the product, you know, and exactly where that constraint is. You know, we do have existing square footage to expand into before even the Salt Lake City facility. And then that will give us, you know, a tremendous boost in terms of square footage. You know, as we noted, it will quadruple our UAS launch capability and then give us redundant capability for nozzle production and on certain critical programs, double our rate on those. We feel good about our immediate capacity today, but we’re going to quadruple and double it, depending on the product, in the near future.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yeah. Hey, good afternoon, and congratulations again, Tony, and welcome, John. Hey, I first wanted to ask, the record backlog exiting 2025. How should we think about the margin represented in the backlog? Do we see any as you’re expanding the backlog, is there any sort of mixed benefit as you think about margins over the next one to two years from what’s in the backlog? Or conversely, are you seeing any incremental pressure on pricing from your customers that could potentially be a headwind from a mixed standpoint?

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. Hey, Ken. I’d say as we exited the year with the $801 million of backlog, there’s really no notable mix changes in that number, whether it be positive or negative. It’s pretty steady course from what we’re used to. I would just make mention that, you know, as we talk about Seemann now coming into our portfolio and the backlog that they bring, we have discussed that they have a bit of a different profile, just given the content on cost-plus contracts versus firm-fixed. That’s gonna change things in the near term. Over time, as those programs mature, we’re gonna work to put those into firm-fixed contracts as well.

Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Great. Thanks. Just to clarify, on the increased revenue guide for 2026, I know heading into the year you talked about 50%, basically 25% organic, 25% from the acquisitions. With the slight tweak upwards on the guide for 2026 now, should we assume that the increase again is roughly sort of half organic, half acquisitions? It looked like initially much of the increase, albeit small, but much of the increase was driven by timing of the acquisitions.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: There are a few factors there. Certainly the timing of the acquisition of Seemann drove a lot of that change. That would be the primary driver. We still expect that in aggregate, we’re gonna have a pretty level split there between organic and inorganic.

Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Perfect. Thank you.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Clarke Jefferies with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Clarke Jefferies, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Hello. Thank you for taking the question. Just generally, I was curious how has the last month changed your investment plans? Any part of the business that you may not have considered a priority for 2026 now 30 days later you’re considering a priority for this year?

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: I wouldn’t say that it changed anything. Call it more strengthening the convictions that we already had. There’s no call it shift in terms of our priorities. Just gives us more conviction to lean into the investments we already had planned.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. This is John. I guess just to add, we did take our planned CapEx expense up a bit for 2026 as we looked forward. We were thinking about 4.5%, I think the last time we spoke, and as we’ve evaluated opportunities for growth, we decided 5% was a better number. We’re gonna plan for that.

Clarke Jefferies, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Perfect. Just, you know, exiting the year here with a really strong margin progression over the course of the year, I was wondering if you could maybe talk about M&A integration headwinds to EBITDA margins, whether underlying margin expansion is around that 50 basis points you’ve talked to earlier or higher than that. Just maybe some discussion around the EBITDA guide.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: From what we saw in the year, I’d say it was in line with expectations, and we’ve talked in the past about operating leverage bringing about 50 basis points a year on expansion. Again, I would just point to, and it’s baked in our guide for 2026, with that contract mix of Seemann and MSC and the heavy nature of cost-plus contracts, we do have that in our guidance numbers. That’s why you do see, you know, that is the primary reason, in fact, for why adjusted EBITDA margin would be lower in 2026 versus 2025.

Clarke Jefferies, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Perfect. Thank you very much.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of John Godden with Citigroup. Your line is open.

John Godden, Analyst, Citigroup: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. First, I just wanted to chat a little bit about the supply chain. How would you characterize the supply chain at present? Any bottlenecks and any ramifications from what’s going on in the Middle East?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. This is John. I’ll start and maybe hand it off to Jonathan. I guess one of the things I would start by saying here is that, you know, in the first few days I’ve been with the business, I’ve spent some time with the team talking about, you know, both the growth trajectory as well as current operations. As I asked questions, one of the things that surprised me was that there was not a significant concern raised to a large extent around supply chain.

You know, as we look at the Karman operating model and strategy, the bringing together of pieces of the supply chain into the integrated you know family of Karman product lines that we have here you know today, I think we’ve really de-risked to a great extent the supply chain concerns that would normally be seen at this layer of the overall defense supply chain. There are a couple of minor areas that I think Jonathan might wanna talk to here, but generally speaking, I would say supply chain risk is low.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. You know, as our customers are engaging with us, collaborating with us on the rates and timing of the ramp-ups, you know, we are in kind doing the same with our suppliers, going to them, communicating the planned rates, you know, understanding what their capacities are, so that they’re ready to support us. You know, as part of that, we’re looking to engage with them on longer term deals so that we can secure our materials from a cost standpoint as well.

John Godden, Analyst, Citigroup: Great. Very, very helpful color. Just changing gears, on Golden Dome, I think your phrasing was you have a lot of confidence Golden Dome will materialize, but the timing is uncertain. I maybe we could just

Speaker 0: Sort of unpack that, the confidence that it will materialize, but then also, you know, what is driving uncertainty on timing? Whatever color you’re willing to offer. Appreciate it.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. I would say from a Golden Dome point of view, overall, it’s clearly a priority initiative for the nation, and there’s gonna be a lot of emphasis on the program as we continue forward. How exactly all of the priorities of Golden Dome will be implemented is still a little bit unclear. We you know, given where we sit in the supply chain, would anticipate that a lot of the volume to support Golden Dome will actually come through modifications to existing production programs. Think THAAD, PAC-3, Standard Missile, for example. Those types of programs are already in place, and the adjustments could be made to the production rates. In fact, those have already been largely communicated you know, to the public. I think that the timing, again, is the question.

As I said earlier, I think that we can perhaps start to see some of the upside driven by Golden Dome coming towards the end of the year in the form of orders with potential revenue as we start to look into 2027.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: The only thing I would add is.

Speaker 0: Got it.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Golden Dome is, call it, you know, one vector of growth that we’ll see. You know, the supplemental munitions supplemental provides another opportunity. We don’t get a PO that says necessarily Golden Dome, and that is baked into the ramp-ups that we’re collaborating with our customers on, you know, being able to support.

Speaker 0: Appreciate the color. Thank you.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Louis DiPalma with William Blair. Your line is open.

Louis DiPalma, Analyst, William Blair: Congratulations, Tony, and congratulations, John.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Thank you.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Thank you, Louis.

Louis DiPalma, Analyst, William Blair: I was wondering for either Jonathan, Tony, or John, can you discuss the trends that you’re seeing in your space business with NASA, Blue Origin, and ULA and some of your other customers? I think the recent Vulcan launch experienced an anomaly, and there’s been some changes with the Artemis program. Can you describe at a high level the trends you’re seeing and how that impacts your 2026 projections? Thanks.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. I think from a space perspective, the way we’re looking at it is that the demand for space launch is going to remain strong. Having a strong position across the space launch, call it prime supply chain, I think we have a good position here. While we may see, for example, a temporary setback for ULA as they work through some technical challenges, and we may see others project perhaps more strong near-term opportunity to support launch initiatives or launch events, I should say. We have confidence that the trajectory we’ve been on will continue to be as it presses forward, even though you know the mix from one provider at the prime level to another may adjust.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. Again, you know, our strategy is to support all the launch providers. You know, say, should one have a bump in the road like ULA, you know, we are supporting all of them. Interestingly enough, Artemis is showing some positive demand signals for us. You know, we do see opportunity there on both SLS and Orion to support that program.

Louis DiPalma, Analyst, William Blair: Fantastic. For you, John, you bring a unique perspective in that you came from L3Harris, and you also came from Lockheed, which are two of Karman’s larger customers. I was wondering, do you see opportunities for the defense primes to offload more of the research and development and offload more of the subsystems development to Karman? Do you think there’s potential there for you to, like, gain, like, market share from your customers in terms of the production of these munitions systems?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: In both instances, I think the answer to your question would be yes. I think there’s certainly more opportunity for Karman to support the primes. That’s been part of the overall, you know, strategy of the company is to look at within the second tier of the supply chain and find opportunities to bring together companies that on their own may not have had the resources to invest at the levels required to scale in the way that the primes, you know, both traditional and non-traditional primes are likely to be expected to in the coming years. We would look to be able to, you know, additional adjacent areas of support, whether that be development or production, and continue to scale the volumes of the products that we’re supporting today.

Yes, I see significant additional opportunity as time continues on. I would temper that by saying the opportunity that we see at this point in time is in the 26 guidance.

Louis DiPalma, Analyst, William Blair: Excellent. Thanks, everyone.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Alexandra Mandery with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 0: Hi, nice results, and thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask, can you provide more color on the contract delays, including the size of the headwinds, backlog, and growth, and if this is embedded in outlook if at all?

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: The size of delay, you know, that might be a little bit more difficult in terms of the exact figure itself. We are in constant contact and communication dialogues with our customers, that is getting better. We have great confidence that it is truly just a delay and it’s a timing matter rather than, you know, will the orders come through. We are confident and that our customers are also confident that it is really just a timing matter.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. I think having just-

Speaker 0: Agree.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Having just joined the company and, you know, certainly talking with other companies in the industry over the last six months, I think that the delays that Karman’s experienced would be not inconsistent with what other companies in the industry experienced during that, the same period of time. If that helps.

Speaker 0: Great. That makes sense. No, yeah. Perfect. I guess one other follow-up was that we’ve seen a push towards low cost, high volume production of munitions and weapons systems by the Department of War. Are you working with any new entrants that are playing in this space?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yes, we are. You know, we enjoy a really healthy position here at Karman. We’re on over 130 programs, and we’re working with 80 different customers, most of which are primes across the space and defense landscape. Certainly all of the established, you know, primes as well as the newer entrants. We’re pretty well diversified from a coverage perspective.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: You know, we’re built from a manufacturing standpoint to support, you know, those type of lower cost, high volume systems that are gaining traction and demand. You know, as an example, ISP has a commercial offering of launch motors. We’re able to leverage that commercial launch motors for DoD applications or DoW.

Speaker 0: Great. Thank you.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Austin Molik with Needham. Your line is open.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the solid results. The first question just has to do with the new updated guidance, and there’s just some big supplemental packages possibly going through Congress related to the conflict in Ukraine. How should we think about potential upside with possible new funding that could be coming related to that war?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. Thank you, Austin. Appreciate the question. You know, I guess the first question is if that supplemental continues to move forward, how long is it gonna take to find its way into law and then into funding? You know, certainly while we see there’s good reason for that supplemental to be pushed forward. Based on what we’re seeing now on the Hill, it’s a little bit unclear how long that’s gonna take to work its way through. The path is not gonna be an easy one. Timing would be a question. You know, if that were to move quickly, you know, certainly there might be something that could materialize before the end of this year.

Again, our best guess at this point in time is those things that could present upside would likely materialize as orders as early as the fourth quarter of 2026 with real volume, you know, potentially in 2027.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham: Got it. Well, thank you. I guess, John, one more question for you. Just given your deep background in the space and just given Karman’s history of being very acquisitive, I guess, like, what capabilities do you think are most of interest that might make sense to go out and purchase via M&A?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. Look, I’ve had an opportunity to spend some time with the team looking at the M&A pipeline, and it continues to be one that has a number of opportunities in it that are under various stages of evaluation. You know, certainly as you’re thinking about things that might be of interest to Karman, I would look at things that are complementary or adjacent to the things that we do today. If you look at how we’ve put the company together to date, that’s largely been how we’ve constructed it. There tends to be value that accrues across the broader portfolio with each one of these portfolio businesses that we’ve acquired.

One thing we’ve been really thoughtful about is, you know, we are a supplier to 130 companies, most of them primes, and so we’re really thoughtful about not wanting to directly compete with our customers. We’re looking at how we can bring together pieces of the sub-tier supply chain in a more meaningful way that brings greater value to the primes than if they were to try to do these things themselves, or as traditionally in many cases has happened, to try to piece them together with a number of smaller businesses that just have less capacity to invest and scale. That’s the lens that we’re putting over the landscape. We’re also looking for high technology, IP-rich opportunities, as has been our historical trend and our focus.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham: All right. Well, thank you guys for taking the question.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Amit Daryanani with Evercore. Your line is open.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Good afternoon. This is Victor Santiago on for Amit. Congrats on the solid quarter and wishing Tony a happy retirement from the team. Wanted to ask about backlog. Understand that you guys don’t guide by segment, but can you help us better understand the composition of your backlog and which segments might be driving the recent expansion? I would just point you towards that we are seeing solid growth in now all four of our end markets. The reason why I wouldn’t maybe call out one in particular is because there is a timing aspect of contract awards, whether it’s, you know, a space and launch commercial platform, you know, award or award of longer term contracts now, of course, with maritime. It the composition can shift from one quarter to the next.

In a longer term horizon on a year, it’s rather pretty well balanced in terms of bookings and what that looks like.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: I would just leave it with all four have great growth drivers behind them. You know, we expect that trend is gonna continue on all four of those end markets.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham3: Got it. Thank you. To follow up on the last question around M&A, just how can we think about Karman’s appetite to do another acquisition following the Seemann and MSC acquisition, just given where net leverage is just over 3 times?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. This is John. Look, I would say as I’ve come on board, it’s impressed me how well Karman has perfected the process of M&A integration. One of the things that’s been really impressive to me, and as you know can often trip up the integration process, is culture. What I’ve seen is that, first off, the core Karman business has a very healthy culture. One of the things that really attracted me to this job as I got to know Tony and know the business, was the way he’s led this team is the way I would lead this team, and I will lead the team going forward. The companies that have joined the portfolio are very enthusiastic about being a part of this business. They understand what’s been happening here.

They see it’s something special, and they want to become part of this team. That’s really made the integration process very straightforward. I’ve met with representatives from all of the component parts of the company in my short time here these last few days, and honestly, there’s just a lot of enthusiasm, and that’s made the integration process more straightforward. Back to the question of appetite. I think the appetite is there if you think about the mix of organic and inorganic growth that we are projecting going forward. That will depend upon a certain amount of continued M&A activity. We won’t get out over our ski tips and bite off more than we can chew.

I think there’s a formula here, and as long as we stick to the formula, things will continue to go well. We’ll continue to see that balanced mix of growth in the business for the years to come.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham3: Thanks. Understood. Appreciate the color.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Leshock with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Michael Leshock, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Hey, good afternoon. I wanted to follow up on the NASA Ignition program announced yesterday to accelerate work on the Moon. You talked about your ability to support the launch providers. Are there any other areas outside of just launch that you might have exposure to as NASA looks to build out the lunar base over the next decade, maybe within, you know, satellite technology or anything else there that you can highlight?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. We do have some participation outside of strictly the launch component of the full equation. In fact, you know, space vehicles is an area where we do have some work that’s active. Jonathan, I’m not sure how much we can say about that work, if you wanna add anything to that.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. You know, it’s one of those where we look at, you know, the capabilities we said that we have, and they have broad ability to support our customers, really kind of independent of what their mission ends up being. Yeah, we have built out at our Seattle facility, a large clean room to support spacecraft integration and assembly work. We would be able to support satellites, spacecraft from that facility. Certainly very engaged with, you know, NASA and their prime customers on Ignition program, to see how we can support.

Michael Leshock, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Great. Then switching to hypersonics, just given the significant growth that we’re seeing across the industry there, and clearly budget support for those initiatives, is there any more color you can provide on how significant some of these growth opportunities could be within hypersonics over maybe the next year or two?

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. I’m not sure how much I wanna speculate on the growth of specific initiatives in hypersonics. I mean, clearly it’s a continued area of focus for our customers. It is an area where we have participation across a number of programs that are in various stages of development. We have some that are classified, we have some that are a little more out in the open. Again, you know, we follow our customers’ lead on those. I would say it’ll continue to be a significant focus for us. It’s a part of our portfolio that continues to grow along with the other pieces. I think we said that hypersonics and strategic missile defense grew for us about 31% year-over-year in 2025.

It’s a healthy growing part of the business.

Michael Leshock, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Great. Thank you.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: Your next question comes from the line of Ken Herbert with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Hi. I appreciate the follow-up. I know the vast majority of what you sell, you’re sole source, but are you aware of any specific efforts or even broader effort by your customers try and add on second sources beyond yourself on any particular programs? And if so, how do you view that risk? And obviously, how do you then go about trying to prevent that? Thank you.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Yeah. It can certainly, it’s something we’ve talked about. I think that right now we aren’t aware of any initiatives of our customers to second source us for performance or capacity or any other reasons. As we look through at the increases that are contemplated, one of our highest priorities is, first off, to make sure we’re performing and meeting our commitments to our customers today. I’ve been in touch with many of our customers in these last several days here to reinforce our commitment, and we’ll be meeting with them in the weeks to come here. Our focus is to make sure that we never become a choke point, a bottleneck, or a risk for our customers. I mean, Jonathan mentioned the redundant. We’re putting in additional capacity for nozzle production.

We’re also doing that deliberately at another location from our primary nozzle production, and part of that is to provide some redundancy to our customers without having to contemplate going elsewhere to get redundancy for those critical capabilities. It’s something we think about. It’s something we talk about. It’s something that is part of our strategy. Certainly, we are committed not to be a choke point, a bottleneck that would put our customers in the position, frankly, of a time-consuming and costly qualification of another source.

Ken Herbert, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Great. Thank you.

Ian K. Walsh, Chief Executive Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Thank you.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Steven Gitlin for closing remarks.

Mike Willis, Chief Financial Officer, Karman Space & Defense: Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you all for your attention today and for your interest in Karman Space & Defense. An archived version of this call, all SEC filings and relevant company and industry news can be found on our website at karman-sd.com. We wish you a good day, and we look forward to updating you on our continued progress in the quarters ahead.

Austin Molik, Analyst, Needham0: This concludes today’s call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.