Cadre Hldgs (NYSE:CDRE) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.

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Summary

Cadre Hldgs reported a 19% year-over-year increase in net sales for Q1 2026, driven by strong demand across law enforcement, first responder, military, and nuclear categories.

The company's orders backlog reached a record $355 million, with substantial organic growth and contributions from recent acquisitions, signaling robust future demand.

Cadre Hldgs reaffirmed its 2026 guidance, expecting over 20% growth in net sales and adjusted EBITDA, supported by strategic acquisitions and strong market tailwinds.

Two acquisitions were completed in 2026: Pure Tactical for $175 million and Alien Gear Holsters for $10 million, aligning with the company's strategy of expanding its portfolio in mission-critical safety products.

Management highlighted resilience in Cadre's business model, emphasizing consistent growth and a strong balance sheet, with ongoing focus on M&A and organic growth opportunities.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good morning and welcome to Cadre holdings first quarter 2026 conference call. Today's call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute. If you would like to ask a question at the end of the prepared remarks, please press the star key then the number one on your touchtone phone. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Matt Berkowitz of the IGB Group for introductions and the reading of the safe harbor statement. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Cadre's first quarter results.

Matt Berkowitz

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during today's call we will be making several forward looking statements and we make these statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform act of 1995. These forward looking statements reflect our best estimates and assumptions based on our understanding of information known to us today. These forward looking statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties that face CADRE in the industries and markets in which we operate. More information on potential factors that could affect Cadre's financial results is included from time to time in Cadre's public reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please also note that we have posted presentation materials on our website at www.cadre-holdings.com which supplement our comments this morning and include a reconciliation of certain non GAAP financial measures. I would like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replay through May 26, 2026. A webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in yesterday's press release as well as on Cadre's website. At this time I would like to turn the call over to Cadre's Chairman and CEO Warren Kanders.

Warren Kanders (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning and thank you for joining Cadre's earnings call to discuss our results for the first quarter of 2026. I am joined today by our President Brad Williams and Chief Financial Officer Blaine Browers. Entering 2026 with greater scale and an expanded set of growth opportunities, we are pleased to have delivered another quarter of financial and operational progress to begin the year. First quarter net sales growth of 19% year over year reflected continued strong and recurring demand for our suite of leading mission critical safety products across our law enforcement, first responder, military and nuclear categories. We ended the first quarter with record orders backlog of $355 million which included $108 million of organic increase from Q4 to Q1. Brad and Blaine will provide additional details on the backlog. But its substantial growth signals strong demand as we progress through the remainder of the year. We are on pace for record net sales and adjusted EBITDA in 2026 with 20 plus percent growth expected based upon the midpoints of our reaffirmed guidance ranges. Today's environment of heightened geopolitical tension and increased defense spending reinforces our belief in cadre's growth trajectory. M&A has been and will continue to be a critical component of CADRE's long term value creation strategy. Since our IPO we have been very clear about our intent to build CADRE into a diversified, multi vertical provider of mission critical safety products serving durable end markets. Thus far in 2026 we have completed two acquisitions, Pure Tactical in January and Alien Gear Holsters in April. While the former was $175 million strategic platform and the latter a $10 million bolt on the same principles guide our process. Our highly selected key criteria include leading and defensible market positions, strong margins, mission critical products as well as recurring revenues and cash flows. Looking ahead, we see attractive opportunities in both the public safety and nuclear markets and intensive grow our portfolio of mission critical safety businesses through patient and disciplined capital allocation. As we assess the overall operating environment in 2026 and beyond, it is important to highlight CADRE's track record of consistent and stable growth through cycles. This is the defining characteristic of the businesses we own. Based on this resilience, we are confident in CADRE's long term outlook and remain focused on taking advantage of both organic and inorganic opportunities supported by a strong balance sheet, robust acquisition pipeline and the continued implementation of the CADRE operating model. In closing, I want to reiterate why this work matters. Our mission together we save lives is the foundation of everything we do. We feel an extraordinary sense of purpose fulfilling this mission and look forward to continuing to provide the best in class equipment that protects the law enforcement, military and security professionals who keep us all safe every day. With that, thank you for being with us today and I will turn the call over to Brad. Brad over to you.

Brad Williams (President)

Thank you Warren. On today's call, Blaine and I will provide a Q1 update and business overview including recent trends and financial performance as well as our 2026 outlook followed by a Q and A session will begin on slide 5. Following a record setting 2025, we carried this positive momentum into the new year driven by ongoing progress embedding the CADRE operating model and everything we do together with strong and recurring demand for our suite of products across law enforcement, first responder, military and nuclear markets. We continued to successfully implement our pricing strategy in the first quarter which is a testament to both the strength of our brands and the value our customers place in our mission critical equipment. We experienced some headwinds year over year in mix for Armor and Nuclear which was partially offset by lower distribution revenue in the quarter. Turning to our orders backlog, it increased to $355 million at quarter end which represented an all time high. You'll hear more from me in a moment about our record backlog, but in short it was driven by significant organic backlog growth from the Blast Attenuation Seat Contract award announced in March 2026 as well as a strong demand in Duty Gear and armor. The remaining growth from our acquisition of Tyr Tactical following our acquisition of Tyr, a best in class brand delivering must own tactical defense products, we completed the acquisition of Alien Gear Holsters last month. This was a compelling and add on opportunity to acquire a recognized holster brand with an established direct to consumer presence. Integration is underway and we have begun working with the teams to develop strategies and action plans for functional consumer, professional and operational integrations. We remain committed to further enhancing CADRE's market leadership through disciplined M and A and a robust pipeline across both public safety and nuclear. As we think about capital allocation moving forward, our strong free cash flow generation enables CADRE to not only execute our M and A strategy, but also invest in organic growth initiatives and provide shareholders with consistent dividends. Our May dividend payment will mark our 17th consecutive since our IPO. Turning to Slide 6, we continue to see a highly supportive long term demand environment across both our public safety and nuclear safety end markets underpinned by durable industry tailwinds. On the public safety side, rising global security threats and increasingly complex operating environments are among the many factors driving long term resilient spend among law enforcement and military customers worldwide. At the same time, we are benefiting from replacement cycles and mission critical demand dynamics to support steady recurring revenue streams over the long term. Within nuclear safety, we believe the long term outlook remains equally compelling. Governments and agencies globally continue to prioritize environmental remediation and nuclear cleanup initiatives, while national defense modernization programs support sustained investment in nuclear safety infrastructure and protective solutions. In addition, growing momentum around commercial nuclear power and energy security is creating incremental opportunities as countries increasingly view nuclear energy as a critical component of the long term global energy mix. Collectively, these trends reinforce our confidence in the durability of demand. Moving forward, the next two slides outline more current trends. First, on slide 7, we see favorable dynamic supporting demand as we look across our core law enforcement, safety and markets. Although there are certain near term developments we are monitoring. As we have discussed previously, CADRE stands to benefit from the current U.S. administration's commitment to public safety reflected in significant investment in federal agencies. Zooming in on our company owned distribution segment, we have seen signs of softness in demand for discretionary type items. For the first time since COVID and the Defund the Police movement, there has been an uptick in publicized budget challenges for various cities which could translate into cuts in state and local law enforcement budgets. With that said, when budget challenges have happened historically, safety equipment spending has always been prioritized. Consistent with this historical trend, we have not seen any indication of a drop in spending for Cadre products given their mission critical nature. In our consumer channel, the strength of the Safariland brand and new product introductions are driving market share gains despite a challenging overall consumer environment. In fact, this channel is up 6.7% Q1 year over year after completing our strategic planning process entering the year, we're excited about the opportunities ahead and confident in our dedicated team's ability to continue fueling growth in our consumer business. We've also taken immediate steps to kick off the Safariland and Alien Gear team to evaluate how best to optimize the positioning of these two powerful consumer brands in the marketplace. Turning to Geopolitics Today's environment of heightened tension, conflict and increased defense spending reinforces our belief in cadre's long term growth trajectory. However, our view of near term opportunities has not changed. CADRE is well positioned to play a more meaningful role when hostilities end, at which point we would expect to provide various EOD offerings to address unexplodent ordinance. Turning next to the latest market trends affecting our nuclear vertical, on slide 8, we continue to see multidirectional support across our three market segments, environmental Management, National Security and Nuclear Energy. A development to call out Here is the 2027 budget submitted to Congress from the DOE. Overall the budget was up 10%, which is positive. However, non NNSA funding was which is mostly inclusive. Clean energy spending was down 11%. This underpins our comments from last earnings related to Administration's shifting priorities. The new budget reflects a focus on defense related applications which could translate to increased demand for our caf ventilation, containment, robotic arms and container businesses. The budget does not change the view we shared last quarter for NFT. We expect rates to hold at current levels. Before I turn the call over to Blaine, I'd like to spend a moment to underscore the significant growth for orders backlog since the start of the year. As you can see On Slide 9, our backlog as of March 31 was at $355 million, a record for CADRE and an increase of $166 million from the prior quarter. This was driven by a few factors. First was organic backlog growth of $108 million. As you will recall from our commentary last year we saw a higher mix of large opportunities that have been delayed following a successful fourth quarter of 2025 during which our teams delivered on larger opportunities on South America, Eastern and Western Europe, UAE and parts of Asia. We made further progress in Q1 2026 as evidenced by the organic growth illustrated on the slide. We saw an $87 million increase from the Blast attenuation seek contract booked in March. As a reminder, this is a seven year contract with General Dynamics European Land Systems representing a key milestone and evidence of increased European defense spending. The remaining 22 million of organic backlog growth was driven primarily by strong demand for duty gear and armor products directly related to the work we communicated last year to close out various larger opportunities in our funnel. We continue to have additional larger opportunities that are still in play that we have not closed that we expect continued Progress on throughout 2026 across armor, duty Gear, EOD and crowd control. Lastly, the acquisition of tier drove another 57 million increase in orders backlog. We are excited about the opportunities that Safariland and Tier teams are currently engaged in evaluating which range from cross selling to new products and go to market optimizations. The integration work with TIER is going exceptionally well along with the progress the Tier team is making to achieve their commitments to us pre acquisition. Taking a step back and putting this substantial backlog growth into context, it represents an important forward indicator and gives us confidence in our outlook as we progress through the remainder of 2026. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our CFO Blaine Browers to speak more about m and a cadre's Q1 financial results and 2026 outlook.

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks Brad. Before turning to the quarter, I want to briefly highlight Cadre's M&A track record to date and strong foundation we have created for the continued success in 2026 and beyond. As you can see on Slide 10, the acquisition of Alien Gear holsters completed in April marked our seventh acquisition since going public. Since the start of 2024, CADRE has deployed over 400 million in targeted M and A reflecting our conviction, financial strength and valuation discipline. Each of these seven transactions has been consistent with our thoughtful and patient approach and more importantly, each has met our highly selective key criteria focused on strong margins leading and defensible market positions and recurring revenues and cash flows. On slide 11 we provide additional details on our latest transaction, Alien Gear Holsters, which we acquired for $10.3 million through a court supervised bankruptcy auction. A recognized holster brand, Alien Gear is a single site business located in Idaho with fully integrated injection molding capabilities. Turning to the next slide, we highlight the key criteria that guide our process when evaluating potential transactions. Alien Gear ticks many of the boxes that define our disciplined approach to M and A outlined on the right side of the slide. Looking ahead, we remain well positioned to capitalize on attractive growth opportunities supported by a robust acquisition pipeline and significant financial flexibility. We anticipate additional MA in 2026 and will target deals that broaden our product range and or increase our customer wallet share. Turning now to A summary of Cadre's financial performance, Slide 14 details our first quarter results. Q1 net sales of 1 55.4 million increased 19% year over year. Of note, the first quarter 2026 results included $2.6 million of inventory step up amortization and a million dollars of depreciation and amortization related to Zircaloy. Volunteer margins were in line with expectations in Q1. We knew coming in the quarter we had some mix headwind in armor and nuclear that was driven by the complexion of our backlog. Right now we expect margins to improve as we move through the year, which is a function of improving mix and leverage on increasing revenues. Illustrated on slide 15 is net sales and adjusted EBITDA growth year over year, including our 2026 guidance, which I'll discuss in more detail in a moment. Our full year growth implies year over year revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth of 22.4 and 24% respectively. At the midpoints. You can see, over the last several years CADRE has delivered consistent and stable growth. Our resilience is a key differentiator with businesses that are largely unaffected by economic, political, geopolitical and other cycles. On slide 16 we present our capital structure as of March 31, 2026. Our net leverage is just under three times after effect and after factoring in a full year of tier earnings, our leverage is less than two and a half times. We believe cadre's strong free cash flow generation coupled with the strength of our balance sheet gives us ample financial flexibility to continue to pursue organic and inorganic opportunities. We provide our 2026 outlook on Slide 17. Net sales are expected to be between $736 million and $758 million. Our adjusted EBITDA guidance is between $136 million and $141 million, implying adjusted EBITDA margins of 18.5%. We still expect organic revenue to be in the 3% to 5% range on a full year basis. As Brad mentioned earlier in the call, our strong backlog exiting Q1 gives us confidence in our full year guidance. We expect Q2 revenue to be around 178 million with adjusted EBITDA margins around 17.5%, which implies the back half of the year will be about 55% of our full year revenue. We expect the sequential increase from Q1 to Q2 to be driven by a full quarter of tier, an uptick in distribution, EOD and armour. Similarly, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins to increase in line with the volume throughout the rest of the year. Overall, our businesses are performing well and we expect continued strong demand in 2026 across our core markets in public safety and nuclear safety. I'll now turn it back to Brad for concluding comments.

Brad Williams (President)

Thank you Blaine. In closing, we're excited about the opportunities ahead. We continue to execute with discipline against our strategic priorities and our outlook for 2026 reflects confidence in the durability of our business, the resilience of our end markets and the effectiveness of the CADRE operating model. Across varied economic, political and geopolitical environments. We have consistently demonstrated an ability at CADRE to deliver strong consistent results. Supported by our talented teams around the world, we remain focused on driving continuous improvement and building upon our market leading positions. With that operator, please open up the lines for Q and A.

OPERATOR

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. To cancel your request, press R1. Again your first question comes from Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley Securities. Please ask your question.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Equity Analyst)

Good morning everyone. I just wanted to start with Tier. Realize the acquisition only closed in January, but wonder if you could speak a little bit more about some of the opportunities you're seeing there and potential synergies.

Brad Williams (President)

Yeah, hey Jeff, it's Brad. You know as I stated a little bit earlier, the Tier acquisition is definitely meeting exceeding expectations in many fronts. The commitments that they've made to us on a pre acquisition basis continue to look really good. We have kicked off various projects and I can't get into details on those externally but those projects range anything from some new products that the teams are working on between Tier and Safariland and and also our mid engine business unit along with other go to market strategies that we feel like we can use as we go forward to optimize what both companies are doing.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. And then given that you, I think you mentioned you're exceeding internal targets on pricing, I guess any more you can give us on the latest you're seeing on input costs and supply chain overall?

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, right now we're not seeing any significant change on input pricing or material inflation. It's something we're staying close to, certainly more when you think about the sites in Europe, kind of staying close to energy prices. In many cases we have fixed contracts that prevent us from being exposed to short term higher energy prices. But up to this point it has not been an impact, but something we'll follow closely and I think more importantly, reiterating, we will be nimble when it comes to pricing we've had over the last five or six years. A couple examples, whether it was Covid or tariff announcements where we had to thoughtfully readdress, you know, pricing as, as things change. So the team certainly has the, the playbook and the capability to, to pivot if required. But right now we're not seeing, you know, any pressure that would change our current course.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Equity Analyst)

Okay, good to hear. And then with backlog pretty substantially, can you remind us how we should think about conversion to revenues there over the next year or so?

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, it's, you know, I think when we think about it, the easy one is to take off the blast attenuation seats. You know, that's that $87 million contract that the EOD business won. You know, there could be some small shipments this year, but for the most part, you know, that will, you know, shift out into 2027, you know, after that, you know, some of the nuclear businesses will carry over backlog, but when you think about the shorter term, the armor, the duty gear, the crowd control, you know, all, and even the chemical luminescence, you know, that will ship in the current year. So when we look at it, you know, majority of it is going to be shippable or is shippable, you know, in this year. Keep in mind, we have the blast sensor contract that we put in for 10 million last year that is expected to completely shift this year. So that's part of the reason, going back to comments that we feel bullish and confident in the full year guidance is we're seeing that backlog uptick and not just on blast attenuation seats, but fairly broadly across the portfolio. We've seen that increase in backlog, which is exciting for us and for the businesses to see.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Equity Analyst)

Absolutely. Thanks for taking my questions, I'll take the rest offline. Thanks, Jeff.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Larry Solo from CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Larry Solo (Equity Analyst)

Great, thanks. Good morning guys. Just on the order and the outlook, it seems like the quarter was pretty much in line. Just a couple questions. Was the weakness you called out on the hard goods and distributed side, is that something new, Something that concerns you?

Brad Williams (President)

Hey Larry, it's Brad. You know, is it new? It's, it's new since COVID and the defund the police that was going on. So it's the first time we've seen a bit of softness in our company owned distribution side of things. And kept keep in mind, within company owned distribution, there's a portion of that business, the larger portion of that business is actually third party products that we procure with various companies. Anything from boots to uniforms to flashlights, you name it, various products like that. And then the smaller part of that business is I'll call it cadre products from our product segment. When we look at the data around our distribution segment, we're not seeing any weakness in the cadre product side of things, which is good. That goes back to, you know, we've talked about in previous years that, you know, that's why we like the safety product side of things. Because typically if there's a prioritization going on at budgets, you're going to make sure that you have folks with armor on, you're going to have holsters and other products of ours. So that's what we're seeing at the moment. We're, you know, we're watching it from a, from that standpoint, but from a product segment perspective, we look good.

Larry Solo (Equity Analyst)

Okay. And the organic growth kind of or assumptions you had for the year I think were, you know, I don't think you break out officially, but it was like, you know, 3 to 6%. Just curious, has anything changed there? Did the acquisitions that Cars or Tier add any more than expected? Any less? Just has anything really changed in terms of kind of organic versus acquired growth this year?

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

No, nothing's changed really on the organic growth side. So reaffirming guidance. Still feel good about the organic side. As Brad mentioned, we'll watch the distribution segment, but rest of the businesses are really performing well. Zirkaloy, you asked about Zircon largely in line with expectations and so is Tier, but you know, Tier we're talking about two months. So you know, we'll continue to kind of monitor progress both in, you know, revenue in the quarters as well as backlog in their funnel, you know, and adjust. But at this time, as Brad said, you know, they've executed right where we expected to and you don't, don't expect any downward pressure from them.

Larry Solo (Equity Analyst)

Gotcha. And then just last one for you, Blaine, just on the guide. So it kind of implies an EBITDA margin in the back half of the year. I know you're always kind of back end loaded, but this time it looks like it's going to have to be like 22, 21, 22%. I guess you're comfortable with that in the back half?

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

We are. We always have operating leverage. Right. As volume comes through. And then you think about the complexion of tier, which is, you know, more in that, that zip code or area code. So yeah, we're comfortable looking at it. You know, we have, when you think about, you know, just thinking about the blast sensor for an example, right. That's you know, incremental volume at nice margin with no incremental opex coming through. So that's where we'll get a lot of that leverage in the back half is some of these larger orders shift.

Larry Solo (Equity Analyst)

Gotcha. Okay, great. Thanks guys. I appreciate the card. Thanks, Larry.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Karanda with Ross Capital. Please go ahead.

Matthew Karanda (Equity Analyst)

Hear what Tier and car contributed in organic sales in the quarter and then just anything that you can call out that drove the organic headwind in the first quarter, I guess was it more alpha or more on the core safety products side of the business?

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

And we missed, I think the first part of your question, Matt. I think you're asking about Tier contribution and zircoid contribution in the quarter. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So Tier, you know, if you kind of run right out their ttm, they were about there in the quarter and Zircaloy similarly was about the same. So kind of fairly level to expectations when you run rate them out. When you kind of unpeel the inorganic, which we knew coming in, we had a tough comp. In particular, Armor and distribution are really the drivers. And Brad, you talked through the distribution challenges there and armor is really just timing the backlog complexion or timing of the orders coming through. So, you know, no concerns, you know, on the armor side and you know, to reiterate, Brad said on the distribution side is, you know, we're not seeing softness on the, you know, cadre made products. It's been much more around the discretionary type products which is, you know, consistent with what we've seen during Defund and Covid.

Matthew Karanda (Equity Analyst)

Okay. And then on the 3 to 5% organic growth for the year. Just wondering maybe a little bit more about cadence of that growth for the rest of the year. I guess it implies that you see a pretty decent pickup. Maybe just anything on the seasonality of that organic growth that you expect and how the blast monitoring sensor contributes. Maybe that's back half of the year, but just want to hear a little bit more about seasonality.

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. So the, I mean you're right on the blast sensor that is going to be a back half shipment as we expected. Kind of looking across the rest of the portfolio. Armor is back half loaded this year as well which was right in line with expectations coming into the year. And then duty year will be looks to be heavy in the last quarter of the year. So you know, it's pretty discreet when we look at it, you know on the places where the volume will come. And again having the backlog uptick in Q1 certainly gives us a lot of confidence in the rest of the year forecast and guidance.

Matthew Karanda (Equity Analyst)

Okay. And then just maybe last one on the distribution segment wanted to hear when exactly did the softness that you've observed and called out pretty clearly here show up during the first quarter and I guess what have you observed quarter to date in that business? Is it still kind of running a little softer on a year over year basis? How to think about sort of some of those third party products that you're selling and any demand changes that you've seen?

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. So I think the good news when you look inside Q1, they stairstepped each month on revenue. So January was a low point, picked up in February and then picked up again in March. So when we look at that gives us some confidence. There was a temporary lull in kind of early year purchasing then we're obviously paying real close attention to it inside the quarter here. But nothing that would at this point give us any reason to doubt kind of the full year. And we've seen that recovery to a point where you know, we're in line with you know, guidance if it continues at the rate. So you know, again it's a very can be a very short cycle, you know on the distribution side so we'll watch it closely. But that progress where we exited Q1 at a significantly higher revenue definitely gives us a lot of confidence going into Q2 that this was looks to be a temporary fall but something we'll continue to monitor.

Matthew Karanda (Equity Analyst)

Helpful. I'll leave it there, thanks.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Sheila Kayalu with Jeffrey. Please go ahead. Hi, this is Jack on for Sheila, I just wondering if you could potentially provide an update on the plutonium down blending suspension and maybe quantify the headwind if possible. Possible. And just discuss kind of the path to resumption in that business.

Jack

Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's not changed since our last earnings update, you know, tied back to the executive order that that went out. So, you know, pretty consistent with that side of things. However, you know, what I will comment on is when you look at the long term side of things, even though there's a bit of a lull in demand for that specific, specific product in that application, you know, there is a, what I would call a fundamental timeline mismatch that still exists between what the DOE has obligations to remove surplus plutonium by. I think it's like 2037 compared to, you know, reactor reuse scaling that is supposed to happen in the 2030-2040 range. So there's going to be some portion of excess plutonium that is going to have to be dealt with. So right now we're continuing to forecast what we have in the plan for this year and for next year. At this moment we're, you know, we continue to look at it being consistent with that. So that's the way I would look at it at the moment as we go forward. No, that makes a ton of sense. And just for follow up, M and A has been a big piece of the cadre story. And I know you guys have talked about it today. I think historically you'd said maybe there's 100 potential M& A target to nuclear alone. Was just wondering, you know, on that what specific engineering capabilities or product gaps you'd be prioritizing, you know, over the medium term in the nuclear field.

Brad Williams (President)

Yeah, no, great, great question. So some of the categories that we've talked about are not significantly different than some of the categories that we have today. We would just continue to build out those capabilities whether it's geographically or within other customers that we don't reach today with certain specific product line expansion. So I would think of it that way. So it'd be continued on the engineering container side of things. We've talked about the critical alarm systems, ventilation, containment type systems. You know, we like the outlook of those. When you look at the spending that's going on and when you look at the budget that was just submitted by the doe, there shows a significant increase in the defense side of things in the DOE budget and a lot of those product categories are related to those applications.

Jack

Makes a lot of sense thank you much, very, very much.

OPERATOR

Thank you.

Mark Smith (Equity Analyst)

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Smith with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please ask your question. Hi guys. I know that it's smaller, but just wanted to look dive a little deeper into Alien Gear.

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

This acquisition, you know, small cost, but can you just walk us through any thoughts around maybe revenue contribution know, synergies that you expect with your other holster businesses and even maybe profitability of this business? Yeah, no, great question. And you know, keep in mind, ailing Gear is coming through, you know, a bankruptcy process. So you know, when we kind of look backwards, like I wouldn't think about as a direct indicator, you know, for the current year, just based on some of the challenges in that process, as I'm sure everyone's aware. But you know, when you look at the numbers for last year, they're right around 20 million and about a little better, but around just a little north of 10% EBITDA, which is not a bad business, but certainly not at our standards. And we look forward. Right now Alien Gear is not incorporated into the guidance that we just closed know, a few weeks ago. So we want to take our time, get to know the business, understand the implications and you know, impact the, you know, bankruptcy process has had on the business. But what we're excited about is you have the same manufacturing processes, really great, you know, focus on consumer and consumer marketing and then, you know, we have, we know a lot about their manufacturing processes. Right. And we're excited to take some of the lessons we learned and improvements we made in our facilities and introduce those into the Alien Gear production line. So we're looking forward to it. You know, great team, very happy with, you know, them out of the gates and we're excited about what this can mean for the, the Duty Gear brands between Safariland and Alien Gear in the

Mark Smith (Equity Analyst)

perfect. Then you gave some good info on kind of leverage and your comfort levels there. I'm just curious as we think about your debt repayment, kind of how that sits as far as use of cash and maybe outlook of debt reduction maybe

Blaine Browers (Chief Financial Officer)

over the next 12 months or so. Yeah, I mean our free cash flow, we have an amount on the revolver. Free cash flow will generate, you know, over the coming months and year will be directed towards that, you know, excluding any acquisitions. And that's really been, you know, kind of our play is dividend. Right. Certainly takes a priority, you know, and then the rest of the cash generated is going to be focused around either delevering or, you know, acquisitions. You know, we're not at, you know, the top end of our leverage. But you know, we've always said we think two times levered is about the right number in a long term. You know, right now when you factor in the tier earnings, you were just a little bit south of two and a half. So we're not far off that long term target. So you know, we certainly have some flexibility out there. But we look at that free cash flow in the absence of deals for the rest of the year, it would be, you know, really focused around paying down the debt and delevering. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thanks for your next question comes from the line of Alex Preston with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Alex Preston (Equity Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. I just wanted to take a step back to the FY27 budget. Right. You noted this mix between, call it lower non NNSA spending uplift on the defense side. I guess as you consider both your respective exposures to these line items and given the budgets are still in flux, I guess would you expect the longer term dynamics to be more of a headwind or favorable and going off that to what extent is maybe the shift in administration priorities impacting opportunities you look at within nuclear going forward?

Brad Williams (President)

Thanks. Yeah, great, great question. So you're, you're right there is the shift going on. When you look at the 2027 budget that the DOE submitted to to Congress, they're showing overall up about 10, 10%, but then a 11% decline in non NNSA funding. So the way we look at it, when you break it up into, you know, the large increase side of things, which is for weapons and reactors being up 11%, we have 4 of our business units that are connected to those type of applications. That's our, you know, nft, which is more of our container side of things, our robotic arms, which is the Wallace Miller business, our RPS business, which is ventilation and containment, and then our PSC business, which is our critical alarm systems that we've talked about. So we feel like those four directly related to the weapons and reactor side of things. And you know, we look forward to seeing how that translates as if that budget gets approved as they go forward. And then on the environmental management side of things that we've talked about and we've, you know, we talked about last time we talked about a little bit this time we feel like that one is going to be roughly flat, which is where we're sitting today as we've dialed in that forecast this year compared to last year where we talked about a decline there and some of the container demand that we do have. So that's how we break it down. That's how we look at it. So we think it's a positive going forward because of that 10% budget increase on the weapons and reactor side effects things. Got it. Thanks. And then I guess back to how you look at the portfolio going forward. Is that sort of shifting how you look at nuclear assets on the market, or is this no playing into that? Strategically not. Well, I mean, it depends. So from an M and A perspective, yes, we want to make sure that we're looking at the macros and where the focus is as things go forward. But take environmental management, for example. You know, even though roughly flat, as I mentioned a little bit earlier with one of the other questions, you know, there is a obligation for the cleanup that has to take place. So right now there's a lull in that cleanup. But as we go forward, there will have to be an inflection point where that cleanup activities, you know, begin to accelerate, I would call it, you know, to the levels that we would expect before this year. Got it. Really appreciate the color. Thank you. Thank you.

OPERATOR

There are no further questions from the line at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Brad Williams for any closing remarks.

Brad Williams (President)

Thank you, operator. I'd like to thank everyone again for joining us on today's call and your continued interest in Cadre Holdings. Thank you. Have a good day.

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