ITT at 24th Annual Diversified Industrials & Services Conference: Strategic Growth Path

On Thursday, 18 September 2025, ITT Inc (NYSE:ITT) presented a comprehensive strategic overview at the 24th Annual Diversified Industrials & Services Conference. The company showcased robust Q2 performance, marked by increased orders, revenue growth, and margin expansion, while outlining a strategic pivot to reduce automotive reliance. Despite strong results, ITT faces challenges in maintaining momentum amid changing market dynamics.

Key Takeaways

• ITT reported strong Q2 growth in orders, revenue, and margins, with a focus on reducing automotive reliance.
• The company targets a 5% organic growth and a 10% total growth, with an EPS goal of $11 or more.
• ITT is actively pursuing M&A opportunities, having repurchased $500 million in shares and maintaining manageable debt levels.
• Strategic investments in high-performance brake pads and Vidar motors are driving market share gains.
• The company is well-positioned in the defense sector, with plans to expand through strategic acquisitions.

Financial Results

• Q2 Performance:

- Orders and revenue showed strong organic and total growth.

- Margin expansion aligned with Capital Markets Day expectations.

- Free cash flow margin stood at 14%.

• Long-Term Targets:

- 5% organic growth and 10% total growth.

- Operating margin target of 23% and EBITDA margin over 25%.

- EPS target of approximately $11, potentially $12 with M&A activities.

• Q3 Expectations:

- Anticipated low single-digit growth in orders due to previous large orders.

- Overall performance expected to meet or slightly exceed expectations.

- Strong cash performance to support R&D and M&A investments.

Operational Updates

• MT Friction (Motion Technologies):

- Outperformed the automotive market by 700 points over the past decade.

- Achieved 90 platform wins in EV, HV, and ICE sectors in the first half of the year.

• IP (Industrial Process):

- Moderate growth in short cycle and a backlog of $1.2 billion.

- Continued demand for Bornemann pumps and Twin Screw Pump Multiphase Technology.

• CCT (Connectors, Cables, and Terminals):

- Growth driven by the defense sector and acquisitions like Kesaria.

- Aerospace sector underperformed due to wide-body exposure.

Future Outlook

• Portfolio Shift:

- Aim to reduce automotive EBIT to 20% by 2030 from over 60% in previous years.

• MT Friction:

- Expect flat production volumes, with growth in China and declines in Europe and North America.

• IP and CCT:

- Positive order outlook for the full year, with no major cost concerns for 2026.

- Anticipated growth in defense orders and revenue.

Q&A Highlights

• Organic Capital Deployment:

- Strong market share in Europe, China, and North America, with investments in brake pads and Vidar motors.

• Inorganic Capital Deployment:

- Focus on M&A in flow and connector businesses with high growth and margins.

- Several actionable targets identified for potential acquisitions.

• Leverage:

- Debt levels can increase to 2-2.5 times for strategic opportunities.

In conclusion, ITT Inc continues to demonstrate a strong growth trajectory through strategic investments and acquisitions. For a more detailed analysis, please refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - 24th Annual Diversified Industrials & Services Conference:

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Morning everyone, thank you for joining us today. I’m Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst with D.A. Davidson, here to host a fireside chat with leadership from ITT. With us here today, we have Luca Savi, CEO and President, and Emmanuel Caprais, CFO. With that brief introduction, I’m going to turn it over to Emmanuel to cover the safe harbor, and then they’re going to make a few opening remarks.

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: Thank you, Matt. Our presentation and comments may contain forward-looking statements, which are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. These assumptions and expectations can change, and we ask you that you view them in that light. We encourage you to review the latest risks and uncertainties in our Form 10-K and other SEC filings available on our website. Thank you.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: All right. Good morning. Just a few remarks before we go into a Q&A. ITT had the Capital Markets Day in May, and when you look at Q2, Q2 was a strong start in the new journey. We had a very good orders growth. You see the numbers both in terms of organic and total, and we started with a good also revenue organic and total growth and margin expansion, which was one of the key messages of the Capital Markets Day. You saw a lot of value creation in the past with ITT. A lot was pure organic value creation, and we started Q2 in the same vein. This is exactly what is going to happen in the next five years, on top compounded with M&A. Another highlight of Q2 was actually the cash. We generated very good cash and a free cash flow margin of 14%.

Now, if you look at the strategy that we communicated at Capital Markets Day, it was really an evolution of the portfolio. If you look at several years back, you see the spread of the different markets, and automotive was very heavy in the mix. If you think that more than 60% of the EBIT was actually coming from automotive. With the turnaround of the other businesses, the organic and inorganic growth of also the other businesses, it’s shifted, and today, roughly 30% of the EBIT is coming from automotive. What we shared is that look at 2030, the portfolio will keep on shifting, with roughly 20% or so coming from automotive. This doesn’t necessarily mean the automotive will shrink. It will grow, will continue to grow in the next five years, but the other businesses will grow more, both organically and inorganically.

We also communicated the long-term targets, which was a 5% organic growth, 10% total, 23% in terms of operating margin, or more than 25% in terms of EBITDA, and you know a good improvement also on the cash flow margin. An EPS of roughly $11 or more and $12 if you consider the M&A. Now, if you look at the messages when it comes to Q3, Q3 is aligned or a little bit better than what we were expecting, and this is good. I think that when you look at the orders, we will have a total low single-digit growth, and this is because when you look at the orders of last year, there were very large orders that lapped.

Overall, in line or slightly better than what we are expecting, and also with a very good cash performance, which will enable us to continue to invest if it is R&D, if it is organic, or M&A. With that, let’s get into Q&A.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Sounds good. Thanks, Luca.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Thank you.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: I wanted to start out talking about ITT’s differentiation in organic capital deployment. Talk about some of the more sizable organic investments ITT’s been making across the three segments. Things that come to mind include high-performance PEDs, GeoPEDs, SmartPED, MT, Vidar, and IP, C5, and CCT. You know how your team is driving kind of the go-forward cadence of innovation across the company.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Sure. I think that the investment in organic growth is key, and you’ve seen the results in the last five years, and this will continue in the next five. If we take the different businesses, one big investment when you look at the brakes that our automotive business has is the high performance. We’ve been growing our market share consistently in the last seven, eight years. We outperformed the automotive market by roughly 700 points for the last 10 years, and we continue to do so. Our market share in Europe is incredibly healthy. Our market share in China is around 31% last year, and in the U.S., in North America, 27% last year. You have very good opportunities to increase market share in China and in North America. In Europe, it tends to be a little bit more tricky because we already have a very high market share.

You really need to be very peculiar in order to understand where you can grow. A couple of areas where our market share is not that high are actually light commercial vehicles, and we’re focusing on that. The other is the high-performance vehicles. You’re talking about the top of the range of the Porsche or the Daimler or the BMW. Our market share one year and a half, two years ago in this segment was 0%. Obviously, it’s an opportunity. We never attacked that for a specific reason. We decided to go after it, and we invested roughly $50 million to open a new plant adjacent to an existing one, with a very pushed automation manufacturing.

There are very few people in the plant, AGVs and robots moving the thing, and it has been a major investment that will allow us to keep on growing our market share also in Europe. Result, one year and a half after, we already won 5% market share of that market. Granted, we are not making 5% because when you win, you win the award, it takes a little bit of time to develop the product, and then the ramp up to regime. Already in terms of awards, 5% of market share in a year and a half. That has been a major investment. Another major investment has been actually Vidar. We invested millions and millions of dollars in this motor. This motor, which is unique in the market, we are the only one to have it. We got the intellectual property to protect us.

It’s really combining in the motor a variable speed drive. Today, the only way to have a variable speed drive motor is to buy a motor and buy also another electronic component that is a variable speed drive. It’s inconvenient because you need a clean room, you need space, and you think about the chemical plants, right, with hundreds and hundreds of pumps. Think about it, hundreds of these variable speed drives. You don’t have the space, it’s dirty, so it doesn’t get applied many times. Combining it, I think that we solved the issue. This has been a major investment for the last few years. We launched it commercially in June, July, and you know I think that it’s going to be a great success story for ITT. It’s lean across all the different businesses to continue to improve the profitability.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Very good. Thank you, Luca. As it pertains to inorganic capital deployment, can you talk about actionability and depth of ITT’s current M&A funnel, and how the company thinks about M&A versus repurchases as a venue to generate shareholder value?

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Maybe I talk about the funnel and the priority. Leave it to you, Emmanuel. If I look at the funnel, on the M&A front, what we’re looking at, the flow and the connector business. We are looking at good growth and high margin businesses. We have been cultivating many of these companies. We keep on cultivating, and we’re progressing in that process. I think that for us to differentiate on the M&A front, we really need to be ahead of many of our competitors to establish a very strong relationship with the target. Emmanuel and I got involved early on, and this has enabled us to differentiate and to win some of these deals even before the process started.

I think that there are several targets today that are actionable, and therefore, we hope to be able to deploy some of the capital on the M&A this year or early next.

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: If I can add, when you look at the funnel, the composition of the funnel, I think it’s fair to say that most of the targets that we’re looking at are in the flow, and fewer of them are in the connector business. In connector, we’re really looking at a sliver of the connector business, which is more defense. Right? From a capital allocation standpoint, the focus for us is to grow this company inorganically. This is where we’re going to dedicate more of our cash if we can, right? Because it’s not always a given. It takes two to tango, and M&A, you got to convince the seller that we’re the right buyer. We’ve been able to do that. When you look at Svanehøj and when you look at Kesaria, those were really interesting assets for a lot of people, and we were able to get them.

If we’re not able to execute on the M&A side, we will continue to deploy the capital from a share repurchase standpoint. This year, we repurchased $500 million. We continue to have very acceptable levels of debt, and we stand ready to continue to do that. When we repurchased the shares earlier this year, obviously, it was at a much lower price than the share price today, and it was a good investment.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Thank you. To that end, maybe recap kind of the level of activity and how you utilized kind of a disjointed market to take advantage of that, but also then focus on where your leverage is today and where you think kind of the optimal leverage profile of the company might look like.

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: Sure. I think that Luca really pushed us to take advantage of that dislocation. In a typical ITT fashion, we tried to be faster than anybody else, and we saw that there was a window of opportunity, so we really took advantage of that and tried to deploy that capital as soon as possible because we knew that all share prices were bound to grow again. We thought it was going to be the same for ITT because we didn’t see anything specific to ITT that would be a cause for concern. We were also very confident in our ability to get compensation from customers in terms of the tariff incremental costs. We acted decisively and really fast, and we were able to really take advantage of that dislocation to the maximum of our abilities.

From a debt standpoint, we’re slightly below 1 today, and I think that we can grow that to 2, 2.5 times, but we need to make sure that we have the right opportunity to deploy that capital. We’re not in a hurry. We’re really focused, as Luca said, on quality assets, and that’s where we’re going to deploy the cash. If we’re not able to, it’s going to return to our shareholders.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Maybe let’s start digging into the businesses a little bit, starting with MT Friction. You spoke at a high level kind of what you’re thinking about from a regional standpoint and where you stand in terms of market share. Maybe provide a little bit more granularity on where you see OEM and aftermarket demand across Europe, North America, China, realizing aftermarket is more of a European commentary, but maybe just a little bit more of the state of the union of MT.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Sure. When you look at our, when you look at MT, you’ve got rail and friction and automotive. When talking about the automotive, we tend to be more in OE than in aftermarket. I would say 75% or more of our business is OE, and the rest is aftermarket. Aftermarket, as Matt was saying, is mainly in Europe, split equally between independent aftermarket and OES, first equipment. Talking about OE, if you look at the production, think about it. Our volume sales on brake pads is directly linked to the production. You know that every time they produce a car, there’s going to be either six or four or eight brake pads per vehicle, depending if you’ve got the drums in the back or not.

What you see in the market probably today is a market that is likely to be flat in terms of production year over year, but the story is different for different countries. You’ve got China, which proves to be super resilient and that we will keep on growing in terms of production in 2025, and you have Europe and North America that will decline. In that market, we are outperforming the market, and this is what we have done year after year for the last eight, ten years. Just to give you a piece of data, the highest the production has been was in 2017, and that was 95 million vehicles produced. Since then, in 2017, the production of vehicles went from 95 to 90 will be this year. A decline of roughly 5%, 6%. In the same amount of time, we grew by roughly 39%. We outperformed the market.

When I’m talking about volume, I’m not talking about revenue, I’m not talking about price. This is pure volume. A strong outperformance. The outperformance will continue for the next few years. The reason why I’m saying that is not arrogance or something like that, but the way that it works, think about it. When they design the car, they give you the word today for an SOP that is going to be in two years’ time. This was happening in the Western world, Europe and North America. They gave you the word today. You need to finalize the industrial product in the next two years. We have visibility because we know there are wars that we won two years ago that we’re launching now.

We know there are wars that we won last year we’re launching next year, and the war that we won this year that we’re launching in two years’ time. We have visibility of what our market share roughly will be in the next couple of years. A little bit more tricky in China because China works at the fastest speed. Really, the time between the war and the SOP is nine months as an average. There, we got a very good story because we are winning with the winners. In 2014, when we opened the plant, the General Manager there, Davide, invested in with the Chinese OEMs. It sounds obvious today. It wasn’t in 2014. In 2014, the majority of the Western companies were investing with Ford, with Volkswagen, with GMs. We invested a lot of time in developing the relationship with the Chinese OEMs.

Today, more than 65% of what we produce are with the Chinese OEMs. If you think about Xiaomi, Nio, BYD, Chery, all of these Chinese OEMs are our customers. Xiaomi, the manufacturer, the phone manufacturer, has come out with three platforms. All those platforms, as an example, 100% of the front, 100% of the rear axle are ITT. This is how the market evolves, is evolving, is probably going to pan out in 2025, and we will outperform that across the regions.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Very good. Maybe just sticking with friction here for the next couple of minutes. Delivered 90 platform wins through the first six months of this year across EV, HV, and ICE. Are you seeing an acceleration in your wins or win rate? How does that kind of inform your legacy market share target of 37%?

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Sure. I would say it’s a good speed. The team, particularly in China, was a very dynamic market. Definitely has won many of the platforms this year in China. Interesting enough, last night I was at Vanderbilt here because we have a training with our people being trained by the school for a couple of days, and we were celebrating Sulai, who’s the sales leader of Friction, because of the exceptional performance. There is a little bit of an acceleration, I would say. Now, when it comes to the powertrain, I want just to rely, we are completely agnostic of the powertrain. You want an internal combustion engine? We make the best brake pads for you. You want a hybrid? You want an EV? We do it.

I think it’s fair to say that when it comes to a new challenge, where you need R&D to solve a problem that you haven’t solved before, like EVs or Euro 7, this is where we have an advantage, and this is where the acceleration comes because you require more R&D to find the best solution for a new challenge, and this is really one of the differentiations that we do have. Therefore, in those kinds of cases, we’re able to find a solution faster than the competitors, and therefore, we tend to win more when those kinds of challenges arise.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Over the years, what’s defined ITT’s ability to capture share in this business, including through periods of supply chain crises, logistical challenges, COVID impacts? How have some of the KPIs fared that really differentiate the business versus your competitors?

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: Yeah, so maybe let me talk a little bit about what we call the MT playbook, the Motion Technologies playbook. This is where it all started, you know, where we really worked on driving fundamental operating performance, strong fundamental operating performance, and that started Motion Technologies in the friction business, where we really focus on what makes a difference for customers. Obviously, internally for us, safety is the number one priority because we want to operate a safe workplace, and we want our people to be motivated to come to work because it’s a safe environment. What really matters to the customer is quality. How can we deliver the best quality, deliver that quality on time and at the right price? This is why Friction and Motion Technologies overall has been so successful because we dominate from a quality standpoint.

If you compare to the rest of the industry, we are very much ahead of everybody else. For every million parts that we deliver, we have less than one, and sometimes there’s a 0.5 that is defective. When the team said, you know, what more do you want? We’re less than one. It’s going to be very difficult. We decided to go to defective parts per billion. All of a sudden, we are at 500, 300, and there is much more room to improve, right? That is an absolute differentiator compared to the competition. Delivery, we’re able to deliver, all our plants are able to deliver our products to the automakers more than 99% of the time on time, which is really a strong performance.

Obviously, because of our process, because everything is automated, we are able to deliver those brake pads at a fraction of the cost and an extremely competitive price, which guarantees a good margin to our customers. When you look at that, the value proposition for the customer is outstanding. Because we have this success, we’re able to reinvest those extra profits into R&D, into innovation, which gave us the Geopolymer project that we’re going to hopefully go to market with in a couple of years. This is a self-reinforcing loop where really driving strong operating performance allows us to generate more profit that we are able to reinvest to make this business stronger and generate that outperformance from a growth standpoint.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: If I can build on what Emmanuel Caprais said, he was talking about our cost advantage. Let me give you a couple of snippets so that you can actually touch it, right? The competition to make the same number of brake pads that we’re making, they’ve got more than 12, 13 plants. We have five. You can imagine from a cost point of view how you can be efficient running five plants at efficiency rather than having 15 plants that you need to keep in process.

اس کے اندر چل بسائی تھی ہاں فورٹائز ہے اس کے اندر اور اس کو مجھے بریک کرنا ہے اچھا ڈسٹروائے کرنا ہے پھر تو مجھے سلیکٹ کرنا ہے سلپ اور او ایسے تو مجھے سلیکٹ کرنا ہے سیٹ اور او ایسے ٹوٹ جائے گا اس کو توڑنا ہے مجھے اوئے بھائی اتنا آواز ہو رہا ہے کیا اس کے اندر کوئی آ نہیں رہا یہ فریڈم کیسا ہے بھائی. ٹوٹ جائے گا اس کو توڑنا ہے مجھے اوئے بھائی اتنا آواز ہو رہا ہے کیا اس کے اندر کوئی آ نہیں رہا یہ فریڈم کیسا ہے بھائی.

makes it also very inflexible. All of these translate in efficiency and cost optimization that we’re able to deliver.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Very good. Maybe we’ll leave it there for now on friction and come back if time remains. Let’s wrap up the rest of the MT segment. Maybe talk a little bit about the rail side of the business in terms of what you’re seeing demand-wise, what you’re seeing from a regional standpoint. Similar to friction, how has ITT been able to generate continued market outgrowth in that business?

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Sure. Addressing the second question immediately is very similar to what friction did in terms of being able to deliver better than the competition in terms of on-time delivery, in terms of quality, and keep on innovating. This has enabled us to win incredible market share in Europe and as well as in China, for example, where there’s been a huge investment in rail. We have a very healthy market share with all the high-speed train that they have in China. When it comes to rail, we really like rail. I know it’s particularly here in the U.S., doesn’t look like a very sexy business, but actually it’s great. First of all, if you think about the macro trend, you know, more and more transportation will happen by rail, particularly when you think about also in Europe and you think about in China. We like the macro trend.

In terms of the innovation that we push, we’ve been able to beat the competition over and over again across the board. Now, on KONI, it’s not just a question of rail, but KONI, which is one of our brands where we are making the shock absorbers, is also playing in defense. This is granted a small portion of the business today, but I can tell you that the orders for armed vehicles, etc., are growing at incredible speed. When you look, for instance, in some of the vehicles in the U.S., but also all the investment that’s happening in Europe, and you see the announcement of many of the countries investing in the Patriot 6x6, that is one of our platforms where are all our shock absorbers. Rail is a great opportunity for us in the long term, and we’re getting some benefits from defense too.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Very good. Maybe let’s switch gears over to IP for a few minutes here. Can you provide an update of what you’re seeing from an overall demand standpoint across key end markets such as chemical, oil and gas, mining, general industrial, and importantly, applications tied to decarbonization?

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: Let me start by product type. If you look at the short cycle, we continue to see moderate growth in there. Our spare parts, for instance, continue to grow. It’s fair to say that it was already at a high level in terms of demand. We continue to grow, and we’re happy to see that. Our baseline pumps are also probably growing in line with GDP in the U.S. The long cycle business, we have had a slew of orders in last year and also in the first half, right? What we saw is that the funnel is declining a little bit. The cause for that was that we got a lot of orders, and the funnel had difficulty to replenish, right? From a demand standpoint on the project, we continue to see strong demand.

From a market standpoint, mining goes strong, chemical is pretty much flat, and I would say general industrial, we are mostly U.S., and so general industrial is mostly aligned with GDP.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: If I can build on Emmanuel’s comment on the funnel, when you look at the funnel today, as Emmanuel said, you look at year over year, and it has decreased because it was huge, but it’s still a very healthy level. What we have seen in the last few months and quarter is a reverse of the trend. You have to be careful on that one to understand if those opportunities that are in the funnel are actually going to materialize or not, depending on the certainty that you have in the market. There is a lot of uncertainty, and therefore, you see some of our customers waiting to make a firm decision on the investment. That is more something that you’re thinking that you have in the funnel more than what you have in the backlog.

When you look at the project that you have in the backlog, and the backlog is incredibly healthy, those projects go. Even if you think about during COVID, we never had one project that was canceled that was started, right? That huge backlog that we have will materialize in revenue growth in the next couple of years. When it comes to the funnel, we really need to see the decision that the customer is making on those investments.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Maybe just double-clicking on a couple of things you said there. Across the broader industrial space, some have talked about demand pushing to the right a little bit. Maybe you’re hinting that you’ve seen a little bit of that on either geopolitical noise, tariff noise. How might we expect this to play out in your order entry in the business, both with respect to short cycle and project side of things over the next couple of quarters?

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: I think that, as Luca was saying in the beginning, we expect from a project standpoint to show a pretty flat to down type of activity in Q3. I think Q4 may be a little bit better. There are two components. First is what Luca was saying, the fact that the funnel has been declining quarter after quarter, even though we’re seeing today that we’re seeing a little bit of growth in the funnel. Second is because we had a really strong Q3 and Q4 last year that is tough to lap.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: In terms of orders.

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: In terms of orders, yes. We think that from an order standpoint, we’re going to continue to grow. Certainly, the full year is going to be very positive, and there’s no real cost concern for 2026. The implication of all those orders that we got in 2024 and also in the first half of 2025 is that there’s a lot of activity that needs to happen in our plant to be able to convert those orders into revenue. That’s the focus today, making sure that we’re able to ramp that capacity and to be able to deliver to our customers on time.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: When you look at the healthy backlog that we have, what is our backlog at the end of Q2? Was it roughly?

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: Total was in ITT around $1.2 billion.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: $1.2 billion. A lot of that backlog is long-term backlog that is going to be delivered in 2025, 2026. From a growth perspective, no concern at all. Within that business, you have businesses like Svanehøj, our recent acquisition. That business booked in the first six months the equivalent of the orders that they booked for the full year of last year. There has been for sure a great story on the market, with a lot of market share gains there. These will keep on feeding the growth of Svanehøj in 2025 and 2026, for sure.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Maybe just to wrap up with IP, can you talk a little bit about your exposure to decarbonization and what you’re seeing there from a trend standpoint, and also talk about your relative price power in this business today versus maybe when you took over a seat?

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Sure. When you look at decarbonization, that is something that is there to stay. Many of our customers need to decarbonize. For instance, they need to stop flaring. If they have investment, particularly outside of North America, they need to stop flaring not just from an environmental perspective, but if they flare, they get fined. They need to stop flaring. We have the solution with our Bornemann pumps, Twin Screw Pump Multiphase Technology, in order for them to find competitive solutions that enable them to stop doing that. We are designing some solutions for some of the major oil producers for them to be able to push the carbon capture that they capture under the ground. We had a major oil producer that is standardized, and we’re already at the third or fourth project with them for some of the major investments.

This is really a good solution that we’re able to put in the market. When it comes to decarbonization, also if you think Svanehøj, the company we acquired that is in the marine, if you look at the marine market, it’s not growing that much. It’s normal growth. Why is Svanehøj growing so much? The market is growing normally, but then there is a disproportionate amount of growth in switching from bulky fluids, the dirty fuels, to LNG and to ammonia. This is where we have our product, and we are the leaders in many of the applications. This is where you see the growth of Svanehøj and the market share gains. Marine decarbonization, carbon capture, stop flaring, we have the technical solution, and the companies and the brands that got the special solution for our customers. It’s good for us.

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: From a pricing standpoint, I would say IP has a unique ability to push pricing. The reason for this is because of our performance. You remember I talked about the Motion Technologies playbook. This is what we’ve been deploying in IP and also in CCT. We’ve been able to improve our service to the customers from a quality standpoint, from a delivery standpoint. There’s still a lot of room to grow. We’re nowhere near the 99% on time that we have in friction, for instance, but we made decisive progress. As a result, customers are coming back to us with new orders. They’re also coming back to us, for instance, in the projects, and are willing to accept a premium because they know that with ITT, their project is in good hands, and that we’re going to deliver on time a product that fits their specification.

In IP, since probably 2020, 2021, we’ve been pushing price to really make sure that we capture as much value as we can for that business.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Very good. I think we have about five minutes left, so let’s maybe go over to CCT, maybe focus on the aerospace side of the business, talk about how you’re positioned relative to the commercial aerospace cycle and the progress you’ve made with respect to customer contract negotiations and pricing terms.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Sure. When you look at CCT, it’s a bit unfortunate because it’s always the smallest one, so we only get left the last five minutes, right? We are really excited about CCT. This is where you have the connector business, the components business. The connectors have performed incredibly well in the last few years, even though there was a problem in the short cycle. We were able to grow double digits, win market share. Granted, we are a small player, so it might be easier. It is easier to win some market share if you’re performing well. It’s a great performance. On the component side, on air, probably this is the only area in the portfolio of ITT where, if you look in the last few years, we underperformed the market.

The reason for that is because we tend to be more exposed to the wide bodies than the narrow bodies, and the air recovery hit more the narrow bodies to start with. Now, with the development more and more of also the travel and international travel, the wide bodies will feed the growth of last year of the components as well. That is going to be good. Going to the negotiation, as you can imagine, Boeing is a big customer of ours, and therefore, we had some fixed price contracts with Boeing that were negotiated in 2014 and in 2015. We are in the middle of negotiation with them. That is going to end at the end of this quarter or the end of October. We made very good progress with them. We are serving them well. We are performing them well. Therefore, we just demand a proper, fair price.

As you can imagine, the price was fixed in 2014 and 2015, but the cost of the material, the cost of the components were not. You can imagine how much money we were not making on many of those products. I’m sure that we will come to a good conclusion for Boeing and for us in these negotiations soon.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Very good. CCT defense, maybe speak to ITT’s core defense-related business and relative positioning here, growth outlook into 2026, and talk to the strategic significance of the Kesaria acquisition and its enabling technology, etc.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Defense is a very good market for us. As we talk about KONI, where before, and it’s a very small portion there, but growing, defense is really where we are playing in CCT. Components, if you think the KC46, the valves that allow the fuel to go from the big plane to the small plane, all of those valves are designed, manufactured, and delivered by ITT. Every single time there is a very harsh environment, a critical component, valves, switch, whatever that the defense would need, we are a very good partner for them, for our defense customers. Also on the connector side, we are probably not the best if you’re talking about a standard connector, but if you have a special application, if you need the customization, this is where we play.

For instance, if you have a drone and you want to move away from three standard 3899 connectors and you want to just do everything with one very small connector, this is where we come in. You can push more data, you have more space on the drone, it’s lighter, and therefore you can put and increase whatever you want on the drone, or you can increase the flying time. This is where we differentiate. These are very good growth opportunities. Kesaria, our last acquisition, this is where we will see very good growth in terms of both orders as well as revenue in our defense segment in CCT and ITT.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Maybe just to wrap up, another question on Kesaria. Can you remind investors of the operational and commercial synergies you see and relative level of accretion, particularly as we move into 2026?

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Sure. I would say let me spend a little bit more time on the revenue synergies. This is where we saw more and more opportunities. In some cases, for example, the customers were coming to us with the requirement of some fiber cable solutions with the connectors. We didn’t have the credibility. We had a little bit of small business with fiber cable, but we didn’t have the credibility or the knowledge or the competence to do so when it was very complicated. The acquisition of Kesaria enabled us to enlarge the piece of the cake that we go after. That is a big opportunity for us. Second is that if you go to the Kesaria plant and you walk the shop floor, you will see in many cases some connectors and not ITT Canon connector. That is an opportunity for us.

There are cases where that platform, we have been qualified, so that will be an easy switch. There are cases where we are not qualified, and it will be relatively easy, an effort, but relatively easy to get qualified. You go through all the steps so that it will be a synergy to come a little bit later. There are cases where it will not make sense. All of those will be good revenue synergies for both Kesaria as well as our traditional connectors business.

Emmanuel Caprais, CFO, ITT: As well as from a pricing standpoint. For instance, we worked hand in hand with Kesaria at the beginning of the year, end of last year, when it came to the renewal of a really large defense program. As a result, we were able to get that renewal business and at a higher price point, which allowed us to also expand our margins.

Matt Somerville, Senior Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson: With that, I think we’re at time. Thank you very much, Luca, Emmanuel. Appreciate it.

Luca Savi, CEO and President, ITT: Thank you, Matt. Thank you very much.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.