On Wednesday, Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.
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Summary
Avantor's Q1 2026 results exceeded expectations, driven by improved execution in bioscience and medtech product segments, with revenue at $1.581 billion, down 4% organically.
VWR Distribution revenue was $1.15 billion, down 5% organically, but the e-commerce platform showed improvement following upgrades.
The company reaffirmed its full-year guidance, anticipating organic revenue growth in the second half of the year, with VWR stabilizing and BMP expected to bottom in Q2.
Notable leadership changes were made to enhance the revival strategy, with 25% of the senior leadership team refreshed.
Management emphasized improved operational performance and a strategic focus on digital capabilities and leadership recruitment to drive future growth.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Hello everyone and thank you for standing by. Avantor first quarter 2026 earnings results conference call will be beginning in one minute. We thank you for your.
Emily (Conference Operator)
Good morning. My name is Emily and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to Avantor's first quarter 2026 earnings results conference call. After the presentation there will be a question and answer session and you may ask a question by pressing STAR followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Chris Fedyk, Vice President of Investor Relations. Chris, you may begin the conference.
Chris Fedyk (Vice President of Investor Relations)
Thank you operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us. Our speakers today are Emmanuel Ligner, President Chief Executive Officer, Brent Jones, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Steve Ek, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. The press release and a presentation accompanying this call are available on our investor relations [email protected] following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. A replay of the call will be made available on our website later today. During this call we will make forward looking statements within the meaning of the US Federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate may occur in the future. These forward looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including those set forth in our SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from any forward looking statements that we make today. These forward looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward looking statements as a result of new information, future events or other developments. This call will include a discussion of non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures can be found in the press release and in the supplemental disclosures package on our investor relations website. With that, I will now turn the call over to Emmanuel.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Let me begin with a few financial highlights for the quarter. First quarter result exceeded our expectations due to improved execution in bioscience and medtech product segments and we have reaffirmed our full year guidance. VWR Distribution and services generated $1.15 billion of revenue in the first quarter, down 5% organically versus the prior year. This performance was in line with our expectations despite soft market condition in Europe and adverse winter weather in the US I'm pleased to report that in the quarter the VWR E Commerce Platform showed green shoots of improved performance in traffic conversion and revenue growth following multiple upgrades as part of our digital roadmap as well as the successful relaunch of vwr.com Importantly, Q1 results provide evidence that the VWR segment is stabilizing with financial performance in line with our expectations. Turning to BNP, BNP revenue was $431 million in the first quarter, down 2% organically versus the previous year. This was ahead of our expectations due to better than expected execution from processed chemicals and new seal. Brent will discuss the detail in his remarks, but TAFCOM influence had a heavy influence on a year over year growth metrics I'm pleased to report that revival efforts are already taking hold in BNP. In Q1 we saw modest improvement in BNP operational performance and we also saw strong commercial performance given the enhanced focus with which our team are working. BNP had a book to bill of more than 1.1 time in the quarter. Other elements of the P and L, including margins, were generally in line with expectations and we generated $0.17 of adjusted EPS in the quarter ahead of our expectation. There are three key messages I want to convey about the first quarter. First, revival is already having a positive impact on Aventor. Across the organization. We see a clear improvement in execution and increased accountability. Our team has a more intense focus on serving customers and we are taking a data driven approach to measure their performance. Second, improved execution has translated into improved and more stable operational performance, most notably within the VWR platform and BNP manufacturing. Improved execution is also reflected in the strength of our order book and demand funnel. Third, we believe that we are turning a corner financially. We believe that VWR's growth rate reached a bottom in Q1 and that BNP's growth rate will reach a bottom in Q2, which position Avantor for organic revenue growth in the second half of this year. We moved the company forward in the first quarter and I'm encouraged by the momentum and positive energy across the organization. In the interest of continued transparency, I want to share two examples of action that we have taken as part of revival. Please turn to slide number four. Revival begins and ends with people and for revival to be successful, we must have the right talent in place. One of the first things we have done is move with speed to recruit exceptional leaders and enhance our leadership structure. This slide summarizes a change we have made to the senior leadership team, defined as my direct reports plus their direct reports. We have moved quickly to refresh approximately 25% of this leadership group, filling positions such as Chief Operating Officer, Chief Procurement Officer, Head of VWR Sourcing and Head of VWR pricing. Recently we welcomed James Finn, our Chief Digital Officer who joined us from Medline. And last week we announced that Ludovic Bourlier will join us from Sartorius to lead BNP and serve as our Chief Transformation Officer. We expect to announce the addition of other high impact leaders soon. Many of those talent investments are self funded with increased productivity. Year to date our overall headcount is down approximately 2%. I had a very clear vision on how the leadership team should be constructed and in short order we have supplemented internal talent with external talent. We have a diverse set of leaders in place with skills and experience will allow us to best execute the revival agenda. Please turn to slide 5. Enhancing operation is one of our foremost priorities, so I wanted to dig deeper into action underway within this important revival pillar which is laid by our COO, Mary Bland. In the first quarter alone, we completed over 8 weeks of Kaizen events events across our operational network. I participated in several of those Kaizen events events as did other senior executives. In parallel, we established a CapEx Council that meets monthly to plan, review, sanction and monitor our capital commitments. With one eye focused on near term needs and the other eye focused on long term strategic requirement. Our CapEx council has sanctioned 12 projects recently, one of which is depicted in this slide. This project focuses on a downstream production process at an important North American manufacturing facility where the current workflow is a people intensive process with scope for improvement. We reimagine the process during a Kaizen events and as a consequence are moving forward with a project to install modular automation equipment in a previously unused space in the facility. The before and after images on this slide demonstrate how this automation project will radically simplify workflows. Furthermore, this investment will enhance quality compliance and throughput. It will reduce our cost per unit and it will free up capacity for the team to focus on higher value activities. We expect to earn highly attractive returns on the capital we deploy. This is just one example of the approach we are taking globally in all our projects, including the $20 million of incremental investment we announced previously. We use tools such as Lean and Kaizen events to rethink the way in which we work and we are marrying that with rigorous data driven analysis to measure the financial consequence of our investment. I will conclude my opening remarks with a few words about the news that Brent will depart Aventor next month. Brent, we are all deeply thankful for your leadership and contribution to Aventor, including the development of a deep and talented finance team. I wish you and your growing family nothing but the best in the future. Thank you Bill.
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you for the kind words. Emmanuel. It's been a privilege to serve as the CFO of this great company and I'm grateful to have worked with such a wonderful group of people. The finance function will be in good hands with Steve Ek, who is an outstanding leader and I remain completely confident in Revival and Avantor's future prospects. With that, please turn to slide number six where I will review our Q1 financial results. Results: In Q1 we generated $1.581 billion of revenue, which was down 4% on an organic basis and flat year over year. On a reported basis. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $219 million with a margin of 13.9%. Adjusted EPS in the quarter was $0.17 due to good execution in BMP, specifically processed chemicals and NUSIL, allowing us to outperform our expectations. Free cash flow in the period was $25 million, excluding restructuring costs. Free cash flow in the quarter was $39 million. Both figures were within expectations and reflect a meaningful and anticipated headwind associated with customer prebates. We repaid approximately $105 million of debt and ended the quarter with an adjusted net leverage ratio of 3.3 times adjusted EBITDA. Leverage increased by 0.1 points sequentially and year over year, primarily due to lower trailing twelve month adjusted EBITDA. Please turn to slide 7. Revenue for the VWR Distribution and Services segment was $1.15 billion in the first quarter, down 5% organically versus the prior year. The primary driver of the organic revenue performance was a decline in volumes, with industry dynamics and European market weakness both contributing. We estimate that severe winter weather in the US negatively impacted segment revenues by about 50 basis points. The bulk of the revenue decline sequentially versus Q4 2025 is due to seasonality in the quarter. The VWR E Commerce platform showed green shoots of improved performance in traffic conversion and revenue growth rates in the US and Europe. This followed multiple upgrades as part of our digital roadmap as well as the successful relaunch of VWR.com enhancing our digital capabilities remains one of our top strategic priorities. Adjusted operating income for VWR was $105 million in the quarter, representing an adjusted operating margin of 9.2% the year over year. Decline in margin is due primarily to volume and net price capture. Increased freight costs were also a headwind. The bulk of the margin decline sequentially versus Q4 2025 is due to seasonal declines in revenues with a number of other puts and takes. There are two key takeaways from the VWR quarter. First, we are pleased with the positive impact our upgrades had on E Commerce performance. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the VWR platform is stabilizing with Q1 performance in line with our expectations. We will address this stability again in our guidance commentary. I will now discuss our other segment Bioscience and medtech products or BMP BMP revenue was $431 million in the first quarter, down 2% organically versus the prior year. This was ahead of our expectations due to better than expected execution from process chemicals and nusil in the quarter. Processed chemicals grew double digits organically due to improving operations and strong order performance. Fluid handling in Nusil were down double digits in the quarter due in part to difficult comps. As we had anticipated. While research and specialty chemicals declined about 100 basis points organically, pricing was positive in the quarter. Last quarter we indicated Nusil and the serum and electronic materials businesses within research and specialty chemicals would be headwinds to growth in 2026 and that this comp headwind is primarily due to normalization of of idiosyncratic customer ordering patterns and shipments in 2025. In the first quarter, this dynamic in aggregate was a mid single digit headwind to the organic revenue growth of BMP. Adjusted operating income for BMP was $103 million in the quarter, representing an adjusted operating margin of 23.8% the year over year decline in margin is due to inventory provisions, lower volumes and mix, among other things. Key headwinds in the sequential margin decline were volume and mix. There are two key takeaways from the BMP quarter. First, our efforts to enhance operations are bearing fruit as our operations showed increased stability in the quarter. More specifically, BMP back orders declined modestly in Q1 and we have better line of sight to improved operational performance. Second, we had strong order performance in the quarter with a book to bill of more than 1.1 for the whole of BMP. Order trends were healthy across all business units and we saw particular strength in our process chemicals order book. I will now turn the call over to Steve Eck to discuss our guidance.
Steve Ek (Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer)
Thank you Brent. Please turn to Slide 8. We reaffirmed our 2026 guidance this morning, but I want to make a few supplemental comments. In Q2 we expect to generate adjusted EPS of between 19 and 20 cents per share. Next, as everyone is aware, the Middle east conflict has created inflationary and supply chain pressures that are rippling around the world. At this stage we are more concerned about the price of raw materials and services rather than their availability, but our concerns could evolve if the conflict persists. As of today, we estimate that inflationary pressures stemming from the Middle east conflict represent an incremental headwind of approximately 10 to 20 million dollars to our 2026 operating income, and our reaffirmed guidance incorporates this headwind. We have established a task force whose responsibility is to identify, monitor and mitigate these inflationary headwinds. Next on VWR the financial performance we saw in Q1 was largely in line with our expectations. We believe that VWR is turning a corner and that VWR's growth rate reached a trough in the first quarter. We expect that VWR's growth will improve gradually over the course of 2026, with the segment showing positive organic growth in the second half. In BMP, the year over year comp headwinds from the idiosyncratic customer ordering patterns and shipments mentioned by Brent and Nusil serum and electronic materials will increase sequentially from Q1 to Q2. And we face another tough comp in fluid handling as well as tougher comp and process chemicals. Therefore, we expect BMP's year over year organic growth in Q2 will be worse than the Q1 experience by more than 500 basis points. There is no new news in these comp dynamics as our assumptions about their impact are unchanged versus 90 days ago. We believe that Q2 will mark the low point for BMP growth in 2026. Finally, we expect the adjusted operating margins of both segments to increase sequentially from Q1 to Q2 in line with seasonal patterns. I will conclude with a comment on capital allocation. Debt reduction remains the top capital allocation priority and we remain committed to reducing our adjusted net leverage ratio sustainably below three times. With that, let me turn the call back to Emmanuel.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, Steve. I will conclude our prepared remarks by reiterating the key takeaways from the quarter. Number one, revival is already having a positive impact on the organization. Number two, improved execution has translated into improved operational performance and number three, we believe that we are turning a corner financially and now believe that the growth rate of VWR reach a bottom in Q1 and that the growth rate of BMP will reach a bottom in Q2. This combined with our tangible revival progress give me confidence that Avantorr will return to positive revenue growth in the second half of this year. Finally, I want to extend my gratitude to our Avantor associates across the globe for their dedication to serving our customers. Thank you for embracing revival and the new ways in which we are working together. I am incredibly pleased with the progress we are making together as a team with that operator. We are happy to take questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please do so now by pressing star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind or you feel like your question has already been answered, you can press start followed by 2 to remove yourself from the queue. The first question today comes from Dan Leonard with rbc. Dan, please go ahead.
Dan Leonard (Equity Analyst)
Thank you very much and good morning. My first question, can you talk a bit more about any countermeasures you're taking to offset incremental inflation?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think, Dan, if I understand correctly your question, you're talking about the measure we are taking again, the inflation that we are seeing, is that correct? Correct. All right, Dan, first of all, thank you for the question. I think it's important to also review the fact that we have a new Chief Procurement Officer. Keith Boljo is joining us from. I worked with him a lot in the past. He's a really, really good person. We've put in place a task force. The good thing about what we see in the Middle east is, is that the inflation will happen in two areas. The first in inbound and outbound fret. And of course the team is really looking at our contract and seeing what we can do on that side. And then the other thing is a few critical materials which will not be in short supply, but really where we will see inflation. So we have a task force in place. We've already evaluated the impact. I think Steve in the opening remarks talked about the 10 million to 20 million headwind that we are seeing that we are contemplating in the reinforming of our guide. And I think it's really in action for us in terms of monitoring and in terms of things what we can pass through our customers.
Dan Leonard (Equity Analyst)
Okay, I appreciate that. And then as a follow up, Emmanuel, can you talk about the significance of that book to Bill in the BMP segment and what is the lead time required to translate that greater than 1.1 book to bill to revenue growth?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, no, it's a very good question, Dan. Look, I think if we look at what we shared in Q4, our order intake in process chemicals was high single digit in Q4. And with the operation and the revival impact on operation, we were able to deliver a double digit growth in Q1 in terms of revenue the very positive things and that we are very encouraged is that in Q1 our order intake was double digit. So there was a sequential acceleration and it's down again to revival. On the commercial side, a lot of those products are between 30 to 60 days, 90 days lead times. It also depends on the customer that gave us some blanket order with a lot of visibility. We have asked the commercial team to work on this to make sure that, you know, through the S&OP process that we have put in place, we are helping as well the operation to have a good visibility of what is coming. So we are super encouraged with what happened in both operation and commercial due to revival. And so, you know, 30, 60 days, 90 days. That's why we are positive and confident about the fact that we'll go back to growth in the second half of the year.
Dan Leonard (Equity Analyst)
Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Patrick Donnelly with Citigroup. Patrick, please go ahead.
Patrick Donnelly (Equity Analyst)
Hey guys, thank you for taking the questions. I was hoping for just a few more specifics on 2Q. You know, helpful to hear the VWR and BMP pieces. Can you just talk about overall organic growth and then also the margins for each and how we should think about that margin cadence for 2Q and going forward.
Brian
Yeah, yeah, Patrick, it's Brian. I'll take this. So look, I think per Emanuel's and Steve's as well as my comments there, you see a bottoming in VWR in Q1. So we expect to see continued improvement in that business sequentially. There are more shipping days in Q2 than Q1. So even keeping at the same pace that we did in Q1, even though recognizing that's a seasonally lighter quarter, that easily gets us within the range of our guidance there. Even though on BMP you'll see lower organic growth, that has to do more with the idiosyncratic comp notion we brought up. It's a nice sequential increase, but not substantial there. You put those together, you get better fixed cost absorption against that and then you'll see modest increases in margin against that. Sequentially you marry that to revival, working in other cost outs there. And that very comfortably gets you to the range of our guidance.
Patrick Donnelly (Equity Analyst)
Okay, that's helpful. And then maybe just on the, on the BMP side, helpful comments there. Can you just talk about what you're hearing from customers? Obviously some mixed data points out there. Are there certain segments you're seeing a little more strength and then again, I guess the visibility into that recovery and confidence level of that recovery as we work our way into the second half and beyond, just with the market positioning there. Thank you.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, Patrick, I think there's not much change in terms of market dynamic versus what we shared in our last call 90 days ago. BioPharma market is healthy. In particular in bioproduction. We see that in our order book. This is also particular and processed chemicals for Q1 in terms of revenue, but also in order, as I just talked about, we also see a strong funnel for us again, we have. We've pushed commercial team to have a better visibility on the opportunity. So we are looking at a strong funnel around academy and government. Nothing really changed. The market is pretty stable. There's maybe a lower level of activity that what we will prefer. And we continue to assume that customers are a bit reluctant to spend money in that part. NHI funding is stabilizing, catalyzing incremental demand. That will represent upside potentially again if the customer decided to spend their budget. Bottom line is that the end market behave exactly as we were expecting it. All right. And I think there's no assumption that there's major change during the year. I just want to maybe add one comment. We shared in the past that despite the difficulty that we had, we never let down the customers, in particular in bioprocessing. And I think we can really say that each time that I meet customers, there is a strong feedback about the service level and the engagement that we have. And this is again reflected in our Q1 or order book and the book to bill, which is 1.1 time.
Patrick Donnelly (Equity Analyst)
Okay, thank you.
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
And Brent, just to close the loop on 2Q, is there a specific organic number you can give? Thank you guys so much. You're probably talking about decline of 500 basis points there for the quarter on top line.
Patrick Donnelly (Equity Analyst)
Thank you. Yep,
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Vijay Kumar with Evercore isi. Vijay, please go ahead.
Vijay Kumar (Equity Analyst)
Hi, guys. Congrats on a good execution here and thank you for taking my question. And Brent, wishing you the best as you transition here. Maybe. Emmanuel, I heard the term confidence in the business bottoming out. It sounded very constructive. And when you think about VWR bottoming out in Q1, you know, what gives you the confidence that VWR has bottomed out? And Brent, if VWR has bottomed out in Q1, why is 2Q organic minus 5 when you guys just did minus 4 in Q1?
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
We're talking about at the firm level there, BJ. So you're going to see more decrementals in BMP, taking the firm rate down to minus 5 there. So you'll see a sequential improvement in VWR and then going backwards by you know, 500 basis points or more in BMP.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I was going to add that around VWR. I think we had a strong reset of VWR last year. We shared with you that we've lost market share. Q1 was really the tale of those market share loss. We have really stabilized the situation with vwr and we also look the order trend, we look at the contract conversion, the new contract we win. We measure the engagement of our commercial team. Everything that we are doing on vw, on VW in particular around the E Commerce Channel has been executed phenomenally well. We're super happy with that. We're strengthening the team with talent and I think this is why we're expecting stabilization really of Q2 and then onwards positive growth.
Vijay Kumar (Equity Analyst)
Understood. No, that's helpful. Maybe one follow up Emmanuel, for you. And if we're starting first half somewhere down mid singles rate, minus 4 to minus 5, what improves in back half? Right. Is it just comps getting easier in back half or is the business turning? Is there a bridge, you know, from first half to second half how we get positive growth in back half?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. I think this is what we said in our opening comments. All right, so Q1 bottom for VWR, Q2 bottom for BMP stabilization of VWR. And then we have the order book that we just talked about which is really encouraging on the BMP side. And I think basically the confidence about the impact that revival has on the commercial intensity, on the operation excellence and also on the fact that we are bringing all those talents which some of them are already having an impact and there's many more coming. So I think this is a combination of all of this that gave us confidence that Tecton Health will be back to growth and of course easy comp as well in terms of BWR in particular.
Brian
And Vijay coming up, taking the comp piece aside, not a dramatic sequential increase that we have baked in the plan, certainly Q1 to Q2 and then we aren't getting more specific on the back half, but broadly beyond that. And just to be super clear into Q2, you know, you'd say about minus 5% at an enterprise level improvement in VWR coming up sequentially coming off a negative 5% in Q1 and then going backwards about 500 basis points more in BMP. You can put that math together and give you a clean picture for that. And that does not require a significant sequential ramp for the company in Q2.
Vijay Kumar (Equity Analyst)
Understood.
OPERATOR
Thank you guys. Thank you. Our next question comes From Catherine Schulte with Baird. Catherine, please go ahead.
Catherine Schulte (Equity Analyst)
Hey guys, thanks for the question. Maybe as you look across your manufacturing and logistics footprint, what portion of facilities would you say are in good shape today versus still needing some investment? I think you mentioned you've greenlighted 12 projects. What kind of investment do those projects entail and what's the timeline to complete those?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, thanks Katherine. Look, I think I visited probably all of them. I think there's maybe a few factories where I have not been like India which I'm planning to go by the end of May and maybe one or two in the US So I don't have yet the complete picture of all our sites. But look, we have excellent sites. I was recently in Poland and Brillard in France and Louvain in Belgium. I think generally speaking, look, in terms of project, there's always project to happen in every site. There's not one site that consumes all our capex or not Every site has their project. We encourage every leader to look at how to apply Lean and Kaizen on the site to make sure that we have productivity. I think Mary is driving a huge improvement on that site where we are measuring the productivity by site and therefore every site leader is encouraged with the help of our internal Lean team to come back with projects that are going to create productivity and we just shared one of them. So those projects are very different. We did 12 in Q1 but I think we will have more coming up into the rest of the year. I think this is where we are encouraged is the team is responding very well in there.
Catherine Schulte (Equity Analyst)
Okay, great. And then can you just walk through how the BMP idiosyncratic order pattern comps face throughout the year? I think you said they were a mid single digit headwind in 1Q will be higher in 2Q. But how does that look in the back half and does BMP get back to positive growth at some point in the back half of the year?
Brian
The idiosyncratic gets a little better in the back half of the year. As you recall, the primary driver on the back half is going to be headwinds in electronic materials. And I would just continue to think about sequential improvement here. And that's really the theme we're driving, we're really trying to talk through here. Sequential stability then modest growth against that.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think we shared in the past Paul, that new steel serum and electronics had actually different timing in the past. And so new steel serum giving headwind first half, electronic material giving headwind in second half. And I think this is important for us to continue to work with the supply chain team, but also with our customers so that we come back to a normalization of the customer ordering pattern and therefore shipment across the year.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Casey Woodring with JP Morgan. Casey, please go ahead.
Casey Woodring (Equity Analyst)
Great. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe to start, can you walk through the price versus volume performance in the quarter? You said pricing was positive in bnp, so assuming that was down in vwr. So. So some more color on pricing in the quarter and updated pricing expectations for the year would be helpful. And we'll also be curious to hear your updated thoughts around gross margins and where those could land on the year. Just given some of your comments around freight costs and such.
Brian
Well, so Casey, broadly in the quarter and let's talk about this on a gross margin side, I think the right way to think about it is sequentially and we talked in the last call about taking the 31.5% adjusted gross margin as a jumping off point to think about this year. And on a total company basis you really had the decrementals on volume offset by pricing actions that came from the beginning of the year. And then you have other puts and takes with, with freight and et cetera there we saw somewhat better performance there. We like that. We believe that will continue to grind up during the year on a full year over year basis. Price cost spread was negative. Again that's due to the BWR margin reset we saw beginning in the second half of last year. But we like the setup for that. We like the execution. And then we believe you'll see a grinding up certainly into Q2. And then we're not being more specific about the back half of the year, but certainly our guide is predicated on that gross margin improvement.
Casey Woodring (Equity Analyst)
Understood. And then as a follow up, can you just talk briefly about free cash flow performance in the quarter? You did 25 million here in 1Q but reaffirmed the 500 to 550 million guide. So just curious if the free cash in the first quarter was in line with your expectations. And I guess you know the guide does imply a pretty big step up moving forward. So maybe just walk through how you plan, you know, on getting there, the puts and takes and any sense for just phasing and how back end loaded that range is. Thank you.
Brian
Yeah, no, certainly Casey. So we noted that it was consistent with our expectations. Our guide is before restructuring expenses. So then it was around 40 when you exclude restructuring expenses, we cited the significant prebate if we had not had the significant prebate in the quarter, we would have looked a lot more like last year and then we would expect a similar sort of ramp throughout the year. There weren't really any other significant moving pieces. If you look at the cash flow statement, there weren't working capital swings or otherwise. It drove it differently. So really the story in the quarter on the relative was the prebate as well as on the absolute on the year over year lower earnings and again that will. It's not unusual for Q1 to be lower on a seasonal basis and then you'll see strong continued sequential improvement which you've seen from us.
Casey Woodring (Equity Analyst)
Got it. Thank you very much. Yep, got it. Understood. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Brandon Couliard with Wells Fargo. Brandon, please go ahead.
Brandon Couliard (Equity Analyst)
Thanks. Good morning, Emmanuel. On the VWR business, you talked about some market softness in Europe. Did that region deteriorate sequentially or is that just a year over year comment? And then the 50 basis points of U.S. of weather impact in the U.S. in the quarter, I guess I would have thought you would have made up those orders at some point in the quarter. Did those get pushed out into 2Q? How do I think about the impact of that? Or they just lost revenue in general?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks. Just on the weather, I think what we were saying is it did impact but fortunately the team worked very well and finished to deliver what we were expected. So VWR in Q1 was really spot on in terms of our expectations. So again another confidence about the team capable of being flexible and really making it work. So that's a comment on Europe. I think there is some softness in particular in the industry in Germany and in couple of areas like this also I think remember that in Europe we are the number one. We are very proud of being the largest distributor there. And so it's a place where the market is, when you are the number one always impact you a bit more than anybody else. I think there is, look, it's an area where we didn't have a leader for a long time there. I think with Christoph now, which is really taking care of that, we did some reorganization and the team is reinvigorated right now. And so that's where we have confidence in the second half in Europe as well.
Brandon Couliard (Equity Analyst)
Gotcha. And then maybe Steve or Brent on the inflationary impact, the 10 to 20 million. Nice to see you're able to absorb that. In the guidance for the year. Two questions. Do your contracts generally allow for freight related surcharges to be passed through and number two, to what Extent. Have you kind of, I guess stress tested those assumptions? Are there other known unknowns that could push you above that range as you look out next few months that you're worried about?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks Brendan. Let me start just a quick comment on the contract and then I let Brent and Steve answer for the rest. We tested that during COVID and post Covid inflation. I don't know if you remember. So we have a tool in place for surcharge. It's working well in some area, in geographical area, other geographical area. It's a bit more difficult. But we are looking at the success story that we had post Covid when we had huge inflation and we are just putting a team in place to make sure that we reproduce that and not only one geography but across the entire territory. So the answer is yes, maybe not every contract, but a huge majority of the.
Brandon Couliard (Equity Analyst)
You can tell by the. A range of potential headwind we see in the year related to the Middle east conflict that we're carefully watching that situation and estimating the impact that it could have on our operating income. And like Emmanuel said, we are monitoring weekly and looking for every opportunity to mitigate that impact on our results the best we can. Brandon, I'd just add you coined a phrase known unknowns there I suspect. I don't know if we can ever know an unknown but we certainly thought very deeply about this. So we think we identified that appropriately.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Matt LaRue with William Blair. Matt, please.
Matt LaRue
Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask about the bioprocess portfolio. You referenced BNP as a category being down slightly into Q and then improving in the back half. Many of the bioprocessing peers I think at this point are closer to normalized growth in the high single digits. So Emmanuel, just curious if you think on a long term basis as you've not a chance to really review the business. If this is a portfolio that you think can grow kind of at that market rate and maybe how long do you think it will take to get back there?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, no doubt. Look, the BMP negative growth into Q2 that we are anticipated and for that segment to be at the bottom in Q2 is mostly due to what we talk about, the seasonality and the indirect purchasing that we've seen in particular into serum and new steel last year. All right. So it's really what is the core of that segment which is processed chemicals. We've seen double digit in processed chemicals in Q1 in revenue, but also in order a positive book to build. We think that the market is 7% like our peers looked at it. And we are really pushing the team to make sure that we are growing at market or even above market for the rest of the year. Again, the focus that we've done on revival around commercial intensity as well as operation give us confidence that we'll go back in second half of the year to grow some on both segments. And you know, we're getting, every day we're getting more optimistic about the business.
Matt LaRue
That's great. And then, you know, Manuel, you joined last July and so then they're almost a year. You referenced the 25% of kind of top leaders, changing the number of folks that you've brought in from other companies. In response to Kathryn's question, you've been out to most of the facilities, I guess. Where would you assess in terms of the structural kind of personnel changes that you'd like to make, any kind of actions you wanted to implement and get going? Where would you say you're at in terms of getting that started and really ready for the company to jump off versus additional structural changes that you think need to be made to reposition the company?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
This is a very good question. Let me first, because I like to be precise, I joined mid August. Exactly. So it's not yet a year. Right. Give me a bit more time to celebrate my anniversary. But super happy about tooth. Super happy about, first of all, the reaction of the team internally. All right. We have some really good talent internally, there's absolutely no doubt. And what we are trying to do is just combine this internal talent with additional external talent. Some of the roles that we've shared today and that are in that early slide are role that we have created that we didn't have in the past. Okay. And so I think where I am today, well, look, I need a strong right hand person and the CFO search is on its way. Someone that can really be my partner to really continue to push and execute revival. But I would say generally speaking at my anniversary, so in a couple of more months, I think we will be almost there. We will announce soon some additional executive member that we should be able in position in a couple of weeks to share with you around Qira and cio. And I think we will be there. Nevertheless, let me just say one more thing. You know, talent is always something which is very dynamic as well. Okay. And what we are trying to do is to make sure that we do not lose the talent that we have as well. But. But this is always something very dynamic. And I think we are constantly making sure that we are motivating our talent. And one of the things that we're doing in revival around simplification is also about changing the delegation of authority to make sure that we empower the right people to make the right decision at the right place, at the place of impact as close as possible to the business. And I think again, this is something that the team is reacting very quickly and very nicely. And I think first quarter we're pretty happy with our results and we are very optimistic about the rest of the year.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Michael Riskin with Bank of America. Michael, please go ahead.
Michael Riskin (Equity Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking the question. I've got a couple minor ones I'm going to throw in. First, you alluded to prebates a number of times. Just wondering if you could expand on that. Just sort of the magnitude of it in the quarter was that unusual for one Q Just sort of, you know, the impact that had on numbers and how to think about that going forward.
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah. Michael, it's Brent. So prebates are associated with enterprise contracts with large customers. We started talking about that in Q2 or Q3 of last year. We had a meaningful impact from payments due to that. In Q4 of last year, you know that, that, that had very significant, we're not specifically quantifying it, but had very significant impact on the cash flow. Let's also be clear, it was anticipated, it was expected in our guidance, it was expected in how our cadence was going to go. Michael, I will also look at it
Michael Riskin (Equity Analyst)
in a sense that if you do not renew and do not win contracts, you don't have prebate. So I will look at it as well as a positive. Okay. Okay. And then on the VWR business, I
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
hear your comments about 1Q. You expect that to be the organic low point. And you know, you talked about some improvements 2Q and beyond. You've got easier comps in the second half, but still you did post a negative 5 organic print on a negative 3 comp. So could you just talk about share dynamics, share gains, share losses, maybe touching on the prebates and the enterprise customers. There just confidence that that's really stabilized and is going to be less and less of an issue going forward. So we talked about last year. We had some share loss. I think I explained as well that you don't lose share at a one off. All right. It's a headwind that goes month after month. It takes time for our competitors convert the win that they had, which is more or less on paper at the Very beginning. And this is where we are. We are, first of all on a seasonal low quarter. We are at the tail of those losses. And we talked also about the fact that last year we renewed contract. We renew contract with opportunity to grow, license to go hunt. And this is what we are doing. We are happy about what's going on right now. And so we have that tangible point which is, you know, stabilization, stabilization of our commercial activity. We win contracts, we renew contract. We lost some contract, we lost some share within a contract. You know, the customer gave us a certain share of wallet. There's a huge dynamic here. But what I can tell you is we are stabilizing, and that's the most important thing. It's a stabilization. And as we are moving into the second half of the year, we have an easy comp. And that is because we are stabilizing, because we are taking the action that we are taking in particular in E Commerce, that we are confident about the fact that Q1 is the bottom. Okay. Okay. If I could squeeze in one small follow up to Patrick's question. I think he pushed you on two Q, organic and margins. I want to make sure I understand the margin cadence properly. It sounds like you're pointing to some gradual improvement through the year, including on the gross margin line. But I'm just looking at prior seasonality that seems to go against that. Is there anything unusual in gross margin that I'm missing for this year that would explain that?
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
Yes, Michael, I think we're coming up sort of the rebase for the company. We have significant revival productivity initiatives. There's always the noise of mix within that. And we're also not pointing to heroic improvement on that. Just, you know, the kind of classics revival productivity and other things along with, you know, along with just better top line, so better absorption against it.
Michael Riskin (Equity Analyst)
All right, thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question comes from Dan Arias with Stifel. Sam, please go ahead.
Dan Arias (Equity Analyst)
Good morning, guys. Thank you. Brent.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Just curious, how much of the plastic wear portfolio within VWR is yours versus oem? I ask because I'm just sort of thinking about oil sensitivity and residential cost, trying to understand how much you have control when it comes to managing inflation just versus sort of being at the mercy of whatever the OEM provider decides to do on price, et cetera. Dan Emmanuel here. We have a huge portfolio, and I don't have the data. I don't think looking at Brett right now. I don't think we have the data in front of us. So I apologize. This is something that we can follow up. What I can just reassure is we have also new sourcing leaders in vwr and Emilia is really leading that. So Emily and Keith are really working hand to hand in the task force to make sure that we are controlling and making sure that we are negotiating best deal we can and passing through the increase we may see.
Dan Arias (Equity Analyst)
Okay, fair enough. Maybe just sort of looking ahead a little bit and thinking about 2027, which I know is a long ways away, but you know, are you, does the operational improvement that you feel like you have confidence in right now, does that give you confidence that EBITDA margins will be up next year?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Let me answer in two parts. First of all, let me echo comments from Oliver. You know, it is April 26th. It's a bit premature to talk about 27 and I just want to reiterate what I said in the tag. You know, I take my comments very seriously and for me it is just too early to put a detailed stake in the ground. However, and saying send that I'd like to make a few more observations on the future. Look, today we are pleased with our Q1. We are looking into a second half of the year which is going to be positive and we are optimistic about that. Revival is having an impact and I'm confident that revival for the rest of the year will have a greater impact. And so we feel that we will exit 2026 and by the end of the year, I think as well that we will have more capital deployment flexibility, a higher level of confidence across the organization and revival is going to accelerate to have an impact on the entire organization around commercial team, around operational team, around the rest of the support functions. And so all what I see today over the last now nine months almost give me confidence. And I am optimistic that 2027 will be a growth year.
Dan Arias (Equity Analyst)
Okay, appreciate that. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Operator, we have time for one more question, please.
Dan Brennan (Equity Analyst)
Thank you. Our final question today comes from the line of Dan Brennan with TD Cohen. Dan, please go ahead.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Great. Thanks for the questions. Maybe just on the distribution business, could you just zoom out and talk to what you're seeing in kind of the broader market. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty what's happening with pharma spending certainly in the US Economic government trends. I'm just wondering versus what you're delivering kind of how's the broader market doing? And then related to that, like are you guys assuming positive price in the back half of the year?
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
John, do you answer the price for the back of the year?
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
Look, we, I'm sorry, the end, we have very modest price baked into our plan here. And then I think from an overall market. Yeah, sorry, from an overall market, I would say what I just said three months ago. I think we are where we are academic and government stable. Maybe at a low level. Education is a question mark. Education segment is a question mark. There's pockets in Europe as we discussed about that include industrial that are really struggle given the macroeconomic environment. There's geographic differences and again we are in so many different segments including mining and pharma. Look, we are thinking that from us and that's very important. We are stabilizing. The team is motivated. We are implementing the plan that we have in particular in digital. We're super happy to have our new chief, Chief Digital Officer Jim Penn. And that will really help us to think that the market is probably at
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
a low single digit and we will be back to growth in second half.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
I think this is where we are today. And of course we will continue to monitor the macro environment on this.
Dan Brennan (Equity Analyst)
Maybe just a final one. I know you called out that material headwind in Q2 from the BMP across the different businesses. Is there any more? Sounds like it's idiosyncratic, very company specific, but you've got, you know, it's pretty big. So could you provide any more color on that like the new Sil serum? And then sounds like Brent that the laconic materials is a headwind in the back half of the year. Sorry if I missed in prior calls
Brent Jones (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)
you guys discussed those. But any, any additional color you can provide on those would be helpful. Thank you. Well look, you know Dan, I think we've talked about it broadly where it comes as a headwind, but Jen. And in the first half of last year due to some timing, both customer orders and our fulfillment, you saw very, very strong performance in Nusil. Now that also has a very strong margin contribution that becomes. That's a headwind right now you also saw very strong performance in Sirum. Then in the back half of the year we saw exceptional performance in the EM business, particularly in Q3. So new still we talk about discreetly but for the research and speculative chemicals piece of it, that EM and serum just provides a headwind in the front half and the back half. That just makes the segment comps more difficult. So that's why you see us calling out specifically how we're doing the process chemicals and other pieces there so they're unburdened by those comp pieces. And I continue to point you all to the sequential performance we have in these through the years, moving away from from the pieces on the comps.
Dan Brennan (Equity Analyst)
All right. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Brent. Thank you. Everybody.
Emmanuel Ligner (President Chief Executive Officer)
On the call to joining us today, we moved the company forward in the first quarter, and I'm encouraged by the momentum and positive energy across the organization. Revival is having an impact. Aventor is turning a corner financially, which gave me confidence that we will return to positive growth in the second half of the year. I look forward to updating you again next quarter. And until then, be well, everyone. Thank you.
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