Forum Energy Technologies 4Q 2025 Earnings Call - 11-Year High Backlog and $80M Free Cash Flow Support 2026 Upside

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: Morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Forum Energy Technologies’ fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. My name is Gigi, and I’ll be your coordinator for today’s call. There is a process for entering the question-and-answer queue. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. A link with instructions can be found on the company’s investor relations website under the Events section. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. This conference call is being recorded for replay purposes and will be available on the company’s website.

I will now turn the conference over to Rob Kukla, Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed, sir.

Rob Kukla, Director of Investor Relations, Forum Energy Technologies: Thank you, Gigi. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to FET’s fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. With me today are Neal Lux, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Lyle Williams, our Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release, which is available on our website. We are relying on federal safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements. Listeners are cautioned that our remarks today will contain information other than historical information. These remarks should be considered in the context of all factors that affect our business, including those disclosed in FET’s Form 10-K and other SEC filings. Finally, management statements may include non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliations of these measures, please refer to our earnings release and website.

During today’s call, all statements related to EBITDA refer to adjusted EBITDA, and unless otherwise noted, all comparisons are fourth quarter 2025 to third quarter 2025. I will now turn the call over to Neal.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Our fourth quarter and full year results once again display why FET is a great business and a compelling long-term investment. Despite a challenging backdrop, including lower global drilling activity, tariffs, and geopolitical uncertainty, our teams executed with discipline and focus. I am extremely proud of what we achieved in 2025, and we are on the right track to realize our strategic vision, FET 2030. Let me discuss some of the highlights from last year, starting with market share gains. We continued to execute our beat the market strategy through customer engagement, product innovation, and geographic expansion. Since the strategy’s inception in 2022, revenue per global rig has grown 20%. In 2025, we increased it again, despite a sizable decline in global rig count.

These gains reflect disciplined commercial execution, a product portfolio that continues to resonate with customers, and the benefits of our global footprint. Our commercial teams delivered a full year book-to-bill of 113%, with orders well diversified across products and markets and geographies. The subsea product line performed exceptionally well, with a nearly 190% book-to-bill, supported by awards in the energy and defense markets. Also, capital equipment orders for drilling products increased internationally, while we saw continued strength in wireline, coiled tubing, and sand and flow control products. As a result, we enter 2026 with our highest year-end backlog in 11 years, up 46% since the start of 2025, providing both visibility and resilience. A key driver of our market share gains and backlog growth is innovation.

New product development remains central to our ability to beat the market and expand our addressable markets. During 2025, we commercialized 10 new products by collaborating with our customers to address specific operational challenges and improve their efficiencies. One innovative example is our Secura Series stage collars, which helped us rapidly grow share in the Middle East with one of the largest oil companies in the world. We are expanding on that line with Secura Slim, the smallest diameter stage collar in the industry, designed for complex wells. With Secura Slim, our customers can eliminate a casing string, significantly reducing costs and improving efficiency while maintaining well integrity. Another important product launch was DuraCoil 95, a differentiated coiled tubing solution for improved performance in corrosive environments. Developed with Middle East applications in mind, DuraCoil 95 expands our our portfolio and supports continued international share gains.

The last example I will provide is our DuraLine manifold system, which allows operators and service companies to rig up significantly faster and more safely with far fewer man-hours. This is made possible by our proprietary DuraLock connectors, high pressure hoses, and patent-pending crane systems. We recently commissioned a system for shale development in Argentina and have line of sight for additional sales. Collectively, these innovations strengthen our technology pipeline and support future growth. In addition to our focus on growth, we are maintaining our margin and cost discipline. During the year, our teams mitigated trade and tariff policy impacts through pricing actions, supply chain optimization, and leveraging our global manufacturing footprint. In parallel, we executed significant structural cost reductions and consolidated four manufacturing plants into two. These actions deliver approximately $15 million of ongoing annualized savings.

The combination of market share gains, innovation, and cost discipline have translated directly into strong financial results. Free cash flow generation was a defining strength in 2025. Over the course of the year, we delivered $80 million of free cash flow, the top end of our increased guidance range. This performance enabled disciplined execution of our capital returns framework. We reduced net debt by 28% and repurchased approximately 11% of our shares outstanding. This is an incredible result for our investors. Looking to the future, we remain confident in our bullish long-term outlook. Over the next five years, oil demand is expected to increase, along with global economic growth, and natural gas demand is forecast to grow rapidly through LNG exports and AI-driven electricity demand. The energy industry must supply these needs while also overcoming rapid declines in existing production.

To meet this enormous challenge, our customers need to be significantly more efficient while also adding new capacity. Under this scenario, FET’s addressable markets would expand by more than 50%. This expansion, combined with our targeted market share gains, could double revenue in 5 years. And with our strong operating leverage and capital-light business model, our EBITDA and free cash flow would grow significantly. The next step in this exciting journey starts now. While the general consensus for our industry is relatively flat activity, we expect to beat the market through share gains, strong backlog conversion, and benefits from structural cost reductions. We are forecasting revenue growth of 6% and EBITDA to increase by 16%. For full year 2026, we are guiding revenue between $800 million and $880 million, and EBITDA of $90 million-$110 million.

For adjusted net income, we are guiding between $18 million and $38 million. In addition, we expect to convert 65% of EBITDA into free cash flow, or between $55 million and $75 million. This is a great start to executing FET 2030. To provide more detail on our fourth quarter results and near-term outlook, I will now turn the call over to Lyle.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Thank you, Neal. I’ll begin today with a review of our fourth quarter results and first quarter guidance, then shift to a discussion of cash flow and our capital allocation strategy. Fourth quarter revenue of $202 million exceeded the top end of our guidance range and increased 3% sequentially. This performance outpaced a flat global rig count and reflects continued strength in offshore and international markets, where our revenue increased 7% and 8%, respectively…. This is the second consecutive quarter when international exceeded U.S. revenue, which declined 2% due to project timing and softer demand for valves and artificial lift products. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter reached the top end of our guidance range at $23 million. Higher revenue and cost reduction overcame less favorable product mix and modest increases in healthcare costs and professional fees.

Also, income tax expense in the quarter includes $3 million of a foreign tax settlement related to tax years 2017 through 2020. The majority of the expense is from a non-cash reduction in deferred tax assets. Fourth quarter book-to-bill was 93%, primarily reflecting order timing in the drilling and completion segment, following two exceptionally strong quarters for subsea and international drilling-related equipment. Let me continue with additional color on our segment results. Drilling and completion revenue was $127 million, up 8%. The subsea product line increased 25% as we recognized revenue on ROV projects and the sizable rescue submarine order announced in June. Coiled tubing revenue was up 13%, with strong tubing sales in North America, as well as continued momentum for coiled line pipe. Drilling product line revenue increased 11%, supported by international capital equipment demand.

Segment EBITDA was essentially flat as cost savings offset unfavorable product mix. Artificial Lift and Downhole delivered a fourth quarter book-to-bill of 107%, driven by large orders for natural gas processing units, and segment revenue was $75 million, down 4% sequentially, on lower shipments by the production equipment product line. Downhole and valve solutions revenues were relatively stable, and segment EBITDA was flat, with margin improvement of approximately 90 basis points, supported by favorable mix and cost reductions. Free cash flow remained strong in the fourth quarter, totaling $22 million and resulting in full-year free cash flow of $80 million. Through the year, our teams generated cash of nearly $34 million from net working capital efficiencies. We also completed two real estate sale-leaseback transactions that generated another $15 million in net, net cash proceeds.

Excluding this $15 million, our 2025 free cash flow conversion would have been an impressive 76% and a yield of nearly 15% on our year-ending market capitalization. We ended the year with net debt of $107 million and a net leverage ratio of 1.2x. Liquidity of $108 million remains strong, with $73 million available under our revolving credit facility. Subsequent to quarter end, we extended our credit facility maturity to February 2031, with improved pricing and increased letters of credit capacity. The credit facility tenor, plus commitments totaling $250 million, provide significant flexibility for FET to fund strategic initiatives, including long-term debt retirement, organic growth, and acquisitions. We appreciate the long and continued support of our bank group.

With this flexible financing structure and our fortified balance sheet, we are well positioned for the future. Looking ahead to the first quarter, we expect activity to remain relatively stable with the fourth quarter. Therefore, our guidance for revenue is $190 million-$210 million, and EBITDA is $21 million-$25 million. The midpoint of our EBITDA guidance is up about 15% on a year-over-year basis, despite a projected 5% decline in global rig count. We are also guiding adjusted net income of between $5 million and $9 million. We expect to generate positive free cash flow this quarter. I would like to remind investors that our first quarter is seasonally lower due to annual incentive compensation and property tax payments. Now, let me turn to 2026 free cash flow and capital allocation expectations.

Our 2026 free cash flow guidance is consistent with our FET 2030 target and reflective of our capital-light operating model. We forecast interest and cash taxes of $35 million, capital expenditures of $10 million, and a further net working capital reduction of $10 million, for full-year free cash flow of $55 million-$75 million. On a comparable basis to 2025, excluding net working capital and sale-leaseback proceeds, the midpoint of our 2026 cash flow guidance is about 75% higher. Let me provide a bit more color on uses of our free cash flow. The capital returns framework followed in 2025 was incredibly successful. During the year, we returned $35 million to shareholders by repurchasing nearly 1.4 million shares, 11% of shares outstanding at the beginning of the year.

We repurchased these shares at an average price under $25, less than half of the current FET share price. We reduced our net debt by $42 million or 28% through the year. Because our balance sheet is in such great shape, we believe any further net leverage reduction should be viewed as dry powder for incremental strategic investments. In fact, with our balance sheet flexibility and capacity, we have the ability to increase net leverage modestly to fund the right acquisition. FET has a long history of increasing our addressable market through acquisitions. Our criteria identifies company with differentiated products that compete in targeted markets, and it would be accretive to FET per share metrics. We evaluate these investments in comparison to repurchasing FET shares.

This year, our bonds allow repurchases of around $30 million, as long as our net leverage remains below 1.5 times. We believe FET, with a forward free cash flow yield around 10%, remains a compelling investment. In summary, 2026 builds upon the success we demonstrated in 2025. Market share gains supporting EBITDA and meaningful free cash flow, enabling exciting opportunities for outsized returns. With that, I’ll now turn the call back to Neal for closing remarks.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Thank you, Lyle. To conclude, I want to reiterate how proud I am of the team’s execution in 2025. They delivered strong operational performance, meaningful free cash flow, and disciplined capital allocation, positioning FET with momentum as we enter 2026. While near-term market conditions remain dynamic, our backlog, market share gains, and structural cost savings give us confidence in the year ahead. More importantly, our long-term vision remains unchanged. With our beat-to-market strategy and FET 2030 as our North Star, the next five years have the potential to be truly special for FET and its investors. Thank you for joining us today. Gigi, please take the first question.

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our first question comes from the line of Jeff Robertson from Water Tower Research.

Jeff Robertson, Analyst, Water Tower Research: Thank you. Good morning.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Good morning, Jeff.

Jeff Robertson, Analyst, Water Tower Research: Neal, can you talk about the trajectory that you see in 2026 and 2027 in the subsea business? And then secondly, in terms of products, if you see more unconventional oil or gas development globally, where do you see the biggest benefit for FET?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah, great. Great question. So, you know, with subsea, you know, we’ve had a great bookings here the last year. So, you know, I think in 2025, we had a 190% book-to-bill, and we’re executing on our multi-year submarine program. You know, this is a strategic growth area for us, and we expect strong demand, you know, energy and defense. So, you know, as we look ahead, you know, 2026 will be a year where we’re going to convert a lot of our backlog and look to add on for 2027 and beyond. Thinking about international unconventionals, you know, we mentioned in our call the delivery of our DuraLine system to Argentina.

So this is unconventional, work, where they’re adopting really the latest technology, that quite, quite frankly, even the U.S., guys haven’t quite gotten yet. So we’re delivering the newest and greatest, to, to Argentina. I think another area will be Saudi Arabia for the unconventional, gas projects there. Both areas where we have, you know, continued to export our, our technology. And as we think, you know, ultimately about the trajectory of 2030, where we’re gonna get the most gains is by attacking our growth markets and getting the adoption of the solutions that we’ve had in, in the U.S., and have those adopted internationally. I’ve, I’ve talked about this example a lot, but I think it just, it means so much that we think about our Artificial Lift, you know, product line.

We have high share in the U.S., and the value proposition is, you know, more oil at lower cost. Well, I think that value proposition resonates internationally as well. And, you know, it’s gonna be a time to get there, but I think that’s probably a fantastic opportunity and one we’ll continue to push.

Jeff Robertson, Analyst, Water Tower Research: With respect to acquisitions, are there any product lines or... just maybe any other areas that have industrial logic to FET currently that make the most sense to target from an acquisition or maybe even an adjacent industry?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: You know, our last acquisition was Variperm, and, you know, great buy, right? We were able to acquire it, you know, at under 4x with high margins, incredibly accretive. So I think another downhole type business would be interesting. I think for us, the main criteria, though, is, is it a great business? Are we adding something to us that, you know, has differentiated solutions, it’s a targeted market, you know, be accretive to FET without, you know, stressing the balance sheet, right? So that’s where our focus is. If we can find that adjacent, where there’s good industrial logic, or if we can expand an existing product line, if it hits those criteria, we’re really interested.

Jeff Robertson, Analyst, Water Tower Research: Thank you.

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Ferazani from Sidoti.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Morning, everyone. Appreciate all the detail on the call this morning. Neal, I just wanted to ask, you came in at the very high end of the guidance range. Where were the pluses and the minuses in the quarter? What came in better than you were expecting?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah, I think it was just-- I, maybe I’ll start and let Lyle, Lyle add in. You know, I, I think the teams just really executed solidly. You know, coming into Q4, you know, we’re always concerned about just the holidays and, and a slowdown.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yeah.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: We really didn’t have that, that impact this year. So I don’t, I don’t know if it’s kind of the plus or minuses of what came in. I think it was really we just didn’t have that end of the year slowdown, you know, around, around-

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yep

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: ... Christmas. We call it frack holiday in the, in years past, and we, we didn’t see that.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah, Steve, that, I agree with, with Neal on that comment. You know, really good revenue growth in the subsea product line, that we saw, that 25%-

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yeah

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: ... increase, so executing on backlog. And remember that most of our subsea revenue is percentage of completion accounting. So based on how much we can execute during the quarter, that can move that number around a bit. So a little bit of maybe ahead of the game on subsea projects, which was positive. And we had really good flow-through in terms of profitability in artificial lift with artificial lift and downhole segment, with good favorable mix, really benefited us. So I think, as Neal mentioned, we didn’t see quite the activity drop off that we might have been afraid of, but also did see some good execution by all of our teams.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Ex- that’s great. In terms of the Q1 guide, very strong, given probably Q1’s probably gonna be the worst year-over-year change in rig count, maybe two Qs is a little bit worse. Where’s the 15% growth? We’re so far into the quarter, you already know the timing of deliveries. How are you outperforming by this much, the change in rig count in Q1, specifically?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: I think it’s a, you know, continuation, right, of our beat-to-market strategy. You know, we are gaining-

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yep

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: ... you know, gaining share and expanding on that. You know, thinking about the overall guide for 2026, right? We have backlog coming into the year, so that gives us, you know, benefit. We also have the structural cost savings that we executed-

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yep

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: ... the back half of last year. And so that’s, that’s helpful as well.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: I think the last thing to-

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Have you fully realized that at this point? Have we seen the full realization-

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: We are-

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: There’s more?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Not quite. Not quite, Steve, but I think the back, the back half of the year, we’ll have 100%, but we’re about two-thirds of the way.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Got it. On the strong free cash flow guidance, clearly part of the benefit you’ve had the last two years has been your really significant actions on working capital. Easier to do in a declining or flat market. In a growth market, maintain, you know, how constraining working capital is a lot more challenging. I’m just trying to think about the pieces, because that’s pretty strong free cash flow guidance for next year. I’m assuming CapEx remains around this level. What can you just walk through a little bit of how you get to that really good number?

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Steve, appreciate the comments on the number, but also on the working capital challenge as we grow. So maybe key components that we talked about in the script, just as a reminder, walking from EBITDA down $35 million of cash, taxes, and interest, then $10 million of CapEx, so really in line with what we’ve done the last few years, and a $10 million release or source of cash from working capital. So good job by our teams to continue to do that with revenue growth. I think a lot of that focus is around the area of inventory. If you look at last year, we released about $34 million of cash from working capital. Great moves in the area of DSOs and receivables, also good on inventory. So I think next year is a continuation of that.

Really, as we think about that cash flow, one of the ways that we’ve done that is by looking at year-over-year comparison, excluding the sale-leasebacks that we had in 2025, and also excluding-

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yep

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: ... network and capital benefit in both years. If you do that, then on a comparable basis, the 26 number is 75% more cash flow than the 25, the 2025 number.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Yeah.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: So, as you mentioned, pretty strong, pretty strong growth there, and confident in our team’s ability to squeeze some more value out of working capital.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: ... I can get one last quick one in. Then, we just looked at the average share count, didn’t really move much in 4Q. Can you talk about the timing of the buyback in 4Q, and then how we’re thinking about timing in 2026? Typically, your cash flow is better in the second half. Reasonable to think that’s the more likely period you might execute?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Steve, I think you’re on there. We did repurchase about 400,000 shares, just over 400,000 shares in the fourth quarter. And we did that, I think, as we think about our buyback strategy and how we have that in place. If you remember last year, we were trying to buy about—use about half of our cash for share repurchases. We wanted to see that cash flow come in. So while we’re really confident in this 26 number, I think a more back-end weighted, like we did in 2025, might be appropriate. One of the things that’s different this year than last is the 1.5 times net leverage ratio constraint. So at the beginning of 2025, we were limited on share buybacks because we had leverage.

We’ve effectively pulled that down to 1.2 at the end of 2025, so, a little more of an open window there. But, yeah, I would think that buybacks may be a little more back-end loaded this year.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: Got it. Thanks, everyone.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Thank you.

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Keith Beckman from Pickering Energy Partners.

Keith Beckman, Analyst, Pickering Energy Partners: Hey, thanks for taking my question.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Hey, good morning, Keith.

Keith Beckman, Analyst, Pickering Energy Partners: What, what do you expect kind of your largest growth avenues to be here over the next few years, inside of your DNC business and kind of artificial lift and down, in your downhole, tools as well?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. You know, I think, you know, over several quarters, right, we’ve talked about subsea. I think that’s been, you know, as part of our drilling completion segment. You know, again, we’ve had meaningful bookings. You know, it has a little bit more diversity outside of oil and gas, too. You know, we had our large defense booking last year, so I think there’s some good runway there. Then you also mentioned the, you know, artificial lift. Again, what’s exciting for us is these, these products, you know, extend the life of downhole pumps, you know, and it, you know, reducing costs and increasing production. So our strong share in the U.S., where we have a, you know, a solid value proposition, solid market share, I think that also resonates, you know, internationally. So we think we have a bigger opportunity international.

So it’s taking that value prop, taking our equipment, our products, and then utilizing our global footprint to really get national oil companies to adopt the technology that has proven itself in the U.S. So I think that’s a big part of where we want to go.

Steve Ferazani, Analyst, Sidoti: We also-

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Just kind of finish that thought, too. In our last couple of calls, we talked about our, you know, our, kind of our, the aggregation of our markets. So we’ve looked at our growth markets, and we’ve identified areas where, again, bigger than, you know, our, our leadership markets, but one where we have lower share. Again, this is maybe, you know, newer adoption or regional. We think over that time, we can double our share in our growth markets, and that’s gonna be a big driver of future revenue growth and ultimately, you know, free cash flow and EBITDA.

Keith Beckman, Analyst, Pickering Energy Partners: Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. Very helpful. And then my follow-up on that is just, you know, you guys have had some pretty significant orders here over the last year. Are you, are you still seeing margin improvement on those new orders that are coming in? And then, kind of in relation to orders as well, what’s, what’s kind of the average lead time for different orders that you receive? Like, what’s, what’s the time from when you get an order to kind of whenever it shows up in the business and revenue?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. It really, really split it out. So I think in our, you know, about 75% of our revenue is activity-based consumables. So that, when we receive that order, we’re gonna turn that pretty quick, we’re gonna turn that very quickly. So that could be a day to, you know, let’s call it 3-4 months. That’s quick turn. On the capital side, which is the other quarter of our revenue, that’ll vary. You know, in general, I would say it’s a 6-month from book to deliver on that. I think as we get more volume, generally, that is gonna, that we are gonna, we’re gonna get more incremental margins. So our goal is at 30% incremental EBITDA margins.

Let’s just say, clarification there on the subsea side, as we’ve grown that, their mix isn’t quite as strong on the margin side because of some of the passthrough items. However, by the, I think, amount of bookings that we have received in subsea, we already get some good economies of scale in our facilities and hopefully overcome that a little bit. So, you know, again, manufacturing, you know, we have, you know, we have good operating leverage, so the more volume we get through our plants, you know, overall, the better. And again, our goal is to have a 30% incremental EBITDA margin on the revenue we add.

Keith Beckman, Analyst, Pickering Energy Partners: I will turn it back. That’s very helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Thanks, Keith.

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Daniel from Daniel Energy Partners.

John Daniel, Analyst, Daniel Energy Partners: Hey, guys, thanks for including me. First, just a congratulations on the tremendous improvement in the stock price. Impressive. Was hoping you could elaborate a little bit on just the opportunities that you guys are seeing for M&A opportunities and maybe valuation expectations on the part of sellers today?

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: ... Hey, John, Lyle, thanks for, thanks for calling in, and, thanks for that question. Really, over the past few quarters, we’ve seen an increase in the number of companies being marketed for sale. So the opportunity set is getting larger, and several of those are really interesting and fit the acquisition criteria that we talked about and Neal elaborated on earlier. So we’re looking at those and evaluating those. I think as we look for those great investments, we want to make sure that they fit with our strategy, and with our forward free cash flow yield that we talked about, that’s a compelling alternative to M&A. Maybe think about expectations. As you mentioned, we have seen some lift in seller expectations.

Primarily, they’ve seen public company stock multiples increase, and so that’s increased some expectation there as well. So, wouldn’t be surprised to see some deals get done at a little bit of a higher margin. For us, I think discipline around our balance sheet is really key. So we’ll keep looking at what is a pretty good opportunity set, and be cautious and targeted in what we move on.

John Daniel, Analyst, Daniel Energy Partners: Okay. And a preference offshore versus land, international, North America, any color there would be it. That’s all for me. Thank you.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. Yeah, and I think, again, earlier, just find the best, best business possible, John,

John Daniel, Analyst, Daniel Energy Partners: Okay.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Whether that’s land, offshore, or, you know, it really fits our mix.

John Daniel, Analyst, Daniel Energy Partners: Okay. Well, thanks for including me, guys.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Thanks, John.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Thanks, John.

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Carlson.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: Hey, guys. Morning.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Good morning.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Good morning.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: I guess maybe start didn’t spend a lot of time on U.S., but when you think about, I mean, you’ve basically proven to the market that you’ve diversified and kind of right-sized the business to be a very good performer, kind of despite what we’ve seen in the rig count over the past few years. I think U.S. rig count down 30%, frac spreads down about 50% from kind of peaks late 2022 to early 2023. Can you just maybe describe the torque kind of available if the U.S. rebounds even marginally? I mean, what is the significance of that to kind of the business?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. Yeah, I think in the US, our revenue per rig is significantly higher than international. So if there’s a, you know, a rebound in US rig count, it’ll be a tremendous torque for us. You know, obviously, high service intensity. And I think as you were, you know, laying out kind of the historical trend there, Eric, I think it’s interesting to know that, you know, rig count down, frac fleets down, but I think total footage drilled, you know, it’s called the length of the wells, is maybe up, you know, stages completed is up. So I think that’s the service intensity. And as we think about that, we view that increased service intensity as more demand for our activity-based consumables. So I think that’s a bonus there.

I think maybe the other part that adds on to that for U.S. land is the equipment is getting older, right? You know, Lyle and I were talking the other day about when’s the last time we’ve delivered a catwalk for U.S. land, and he’s been here longer than me, and he had to scratch his head to try to remember. So it’s been probably over 10 years. So what we are starting to see from our customers, though, is interest in, you know, upgrading their capital, you know, whether it’s drilling rigs or frac fleets. And I think for, you know, for those who aren’t as familiar with our story, you know, we don’t build entire drilling rigs or build entire frac fleets. We provide kind of the key components for them.

So as the customer base in the U.S. continues to increase the intensity of the assets they have, they’re gonna need to upgrade and add our equipment. A great example is our FR 120, you know, the IR Roughneck, which for those that follow the show Landman, they were able to see it on the Season 2, Episode 6. You know, the roughneck, the roughnecks of Antecs Oil called our product the future. So that was good to see.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And, yeah, I did catch that episode. Very interesting. And then maybe just when you think about kind of the core OFS equipment business versus kind of some of these newer opportunities, whether it’s kind of subsea, not directly related to oil and gas, or maybe kind of the... One of the recent conversations I had was with kind of a large data center real estate investor, and they said, I mean, people are moving and just trying to find mobile power generation to kind of bridge the gap, kind of as they wait for kind of firm base load to be delivered by the utility. And I know you guys offer, like, some, whether it’s kind of the radiators or whatever it might be.

Can you talk about some of maybe just the markets that are non-oil and gas-related and kind of are those early stages? Is there a really big opportunity there? Is it, I mean, marginally better? Just provide some feedback there would be interesting.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. You mentioned subsea. I’ll start there, but I think the data center one is obviously very interesting, too. But, you know, on subsea defense, you know, we think that is a long-term growth opportunity, right? We provide, you know, key equipment. We’re already in that business. So I think as world economies rearm, as other countries around the world, excuse me, rearm and look to avoid, you know, satellite detection, working underwater is incredible. So it’s a key part of their defense capabilities. So I think that’s a long-term growth area, and I think it’s a great opportunity. You know, the data center side, you mentioned mobile power. So we do provide, you know, key heat exchangers, radiators, you know, for that market.

Again, we’ve taken the lead or the great product we had for heat exchangers and mobile frac, and those customers are now adopting that for mobile power generation. You know, we also see the fixed radiator possibility as a huge market, and it’s one that we’re looking at developing products for. I think it’s early on. We wanna see if it fits our engineering and supply chain manufacturing wheelhouse, but that would be a key area for us as well. And then, you know, maybe last area, we, you know, a good example is coiled line pipe. You know, we’ve talked about that in prior calls, but we are providing that product into, you know, non-oil and gas applications.

You know, let’s call it renewable natural gas, you know, opportunities like that. So that’s been a good add to, let’s call it, our nontraditional base. But, you know, overall, you think about the data center opportunity, I kind of view it as more of a second derivative growth for us. That I think the increase in gas demand overall, you know, whether it’s LNG, data centers, that’s gonna drive U.S. drilling completion activity, and I think that’s where we’re gonna really see the benefit as well.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: Agreed. And then maybe shift to the kind of the capital returns framework, which you kind of laid out. I mean, when you guys look at acquisitions, I mean, are things still trading around that 3-5x EBITDA multiple? Like, if someone is holding something privately, or you could carve something out of someone else who’s public that wants to shed a legacy business, or private equity firm that’s been holding a business for the last dozen years that needs an exit. I mean, do you have any sense of, like, where... Like, what are multiples looking like that on, on either a EBITDA or cash flow or, or both? I’m just curious if, if you’re kind of looking at your pipeline.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: No, Eric, good, great question, and like I mentioned earlier, we’ve seen deals getting done with a little bit more of an elevated enterprise value to EBITDA multiple. And, you know, we’re seeing that. I think relative to public company comps, those are still lower, but we’ve seen some move up from where they are. I think it’s very situational as to what that deal is. And you mentioned some of the kinds of sellers that are out there, whether it’s, you know, family-owned businesses, whether it’s some carve-outs, or it’s private equity owners that have been long in the tooth making the sale. So, definitely a good opportunity set out there as far as technology.

It would fit well within our portfolio, and that we think we could leverage and would be incremental to our story. And that’s what we’re looking for, but we’re also gonna be careful, and make sure we don’t get out over our skis on any deal.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: Right. Then maybe in that lens is, I mean, I’ve looked at, and I’ve heard you present kind of the FET 2030 story, and, I mean, the potential there. I mean, obviously, buying stock back today is not the same as buying it at $25, and we can argue if you should ever have that opportunity or not. But when you think about, I can buy my stock today, invest in my own organic growth, and just let the story play out through 2030, if I’m buying today, that looks like a pretty damn good investment longer term. I mean, how... Like, is there a hurdle rate where you say, like, I mean, buying our own stock, we know, we know our own business, that costs us nothing to integrate.

We don’t have the risk of getting overlevered versus going out and trying to buy somebody. Like, how do you guys think about kind of the risk reward there? Like, how much better does acquiring somebody have to be versus just saying, "We’ll just buy our own stock, and we could return cash in a multitude of ways in the future as we kind of build this base towards kind of the 2030 growth plan?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. Again, we’ve started that FET 2030 growth plan really from the bottoms up, right? Looking at all of our businesses, what could we do organically? I think about an acquisition and adding on to that as a way to really supercharge that as well. Though, can we add somebody that we have, you know, revenue synergies? Can we have some cost synergies? And, you know, by having this type of product, could we then, you know, grow faster our existing, you know, organic story? So I think there’s definitely opportunities out there like that, and I think you gotta look at them on an individual basis. You know, there’s we have our criteria that I think we’ve talked about a lot.

You know, gotta be differentiated, you know, it’s gotta be a targeted market, and we wanna have it accretive to our financial metrics. So you’re right, though, we’ve the story, you know, buying our own stock has played out really well. It’s been a good use of capital, and you know, our investors have taken notice. But I think it’s one part of our capital allocation strategy. I think M&A is another, and I think overall, as long as the acquisition hits the criteria and adds to our FET 2030 story, we will take a serious look at it.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: Great. That’s helpful. I have two more questions, then I’ll shut up. So when you think about... I mean, so Variperm, heavy oil sands in Canada, primarily. There’s obviously international implications to that. I mean, and this is very early stages, but, like, is Variperm, products that can be used in, Venezuela eventually or, or something like that, if a, a market like that would open up?

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. Yeah, that’s great, great question. Veriferm has sold their products into Latin America for heavy oil applications in the past. So I think there is an application. I think as Venezuela develops, we’ll learn more about, you know, whether they will, you know, go more towards a product development like we would have. I think maybe on a bigger picture of Venezuela, you know, there’s been a lot of public company commentary. You know, some of our biggest customers have been, you know, saying how enthusiastic they are. When they deploy equipment down there, they’re going to need our consumables to run. Again, that’s coil tubing, you know, wireline casing hardware, artificial lift products.

I wanna say, even just this week, you know, we received legal approval to book a coiled tubing order, you know, for Venezuela. So I think, I think that opportunity is starting to move, and a great way for us to participate in it is with our customer base, who’s gonna deploy their equipment down there.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: Interesting. Then last question will be two parts. Just, I mean, think about the tariff ruling today. What do you think is kinda net impact of that? And then also, kinda on the financial side, I mean, projecting positive net income in a pretty meaningful way this year, and obviously, large deferred tax assets. I am no expert in that, but when you think about those, on a go-forward basis, I mean, what’s the incremental benefit of some of those? If you can either write them up or, I mean, maybe explain to me that a little bit as well.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: I’ll start with the tariffs and let Lyle take the tax part. The ruling today... So we really kind of, let’s call it, three categories of tariffs. We have the Section 232, Section 301, and what’s referred to the IEEPA tariffs. The Supreme Court decision this morning just struck down the IEEPA tariffs, so the 232 and 301s are gonna remain in place. So for us, that’s, those are the more impactful ones. We’ve had those in place, though, since, I think, 2017, and they’ve impacted more of our steel, so our steel supply. So we still have-

Eric Carlson, Analyst: Okay

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: ... a good amount of tariffs still in place. Again, we’ve done what we can to mitigate those.

Lyle Williams, Chief Financial Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: Yeah. Let me, let me talk about taxes a little bit, Eric. It’s definitely something that we’re, we’re focused on. As we’ve grown our profitability, especially outside the U.S., that’s where we pay taxes, and so our tax bill is getting bigger as we do that and have that success. A lot of our tax assets, deferred tax assets, sit in the U.S., and so we have a lot of tax shield here. Kinda put all that together, it makes a really wonky tax rate, and you think about our, our tax. We’re paying tax outside the U.S., and we’re not here in the U.S.

So as we look to the future and look at increasing our taxable income in different countries, then it’s about how could we optimize where that comes from, whether that’s in the U.S., which would be more of an advantage for us or in other countries as we grow. So something that’s on our radar screen and definitely focused on as we look ahead and make sure we’re doing appropriate execution, but also now that we are paying taxes in countries, making sure that we’re maintaining good compliance and keeping up with all the rules as they change around the world.

Eric Carlson, Analyst: That’s helpful. All right. Great. Thanks.

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Neal Lux for closing remarks.

Neal Lux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Forum Energy Technologies: All right. Well, thank you for your support and participation on today’s call. We look forward to our next meeting in May to discuss FET’s first quarter 2026 results.

Gigi, Conference Call Coordinator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.