Crane NXT Co (NYSE: CXT) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Feb. 12, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Matthew Roache — Vice President of Investor Relations
Aaron W. Saak — President & Chief Executive Officer
Christina Cristiano — Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Matt Summerville — Analyst
Mike Holoran — Analyst
Bob Labik — Analyst
Ian Zaffino — Analyst
Bobby Brooks — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Good day everyone and welcome to Crane NXT fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To participate, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised to withdraw your question, simply press star 11 again. Please note this conference is being recorded now. It is my pleasure to turn the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Matt Grosch. Please be.
Matthew Roache — Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you operator and good morning everyone. I want to welcome you all to the fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call for Crane NXT. Before we begin, let me remind you that the slides we will reference during this presentation can be accessed via the Investor Relations section of our website@cranenxt.com and a replay of today’s call will also be available on our website. Before we discuss our results, I encourage all participants to review the legal Notice in slide 2 which explains the risk of forward looking statements and the use of non GAAP financial measures. Additionally, we refer you to the cautionary language at the bottom of our earnings release in our Form 10K and subsequent filings pertaining to forward looking statements.
During the call, we will also be using non GAAP financial measures which are reconciled to the comparable GAAP measures in the tables at the end of our press release. An accompanying slide presentation, both of which are available on our website in the Investor Relations section With me today are Aaron Saik, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Christina Cristiano, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On our call this morning, we’ll discuss our 2025 highlights, our financial and operational performance, and our 2026 financial guidance and outlook. After our prepared remarks, we’ll open the call to analysts for questions.
With that, I’ll turn the call over to Aaron.
Aaron W. Saak — President & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Matt and good morning. I appreciate everyone joining the call today. I’d like to begin by thanking our Crane NXT team members around the world for their performance during Q4. We have an exceptional team and I’m proud of our accomplishments throughout 2025. Starting with our financial results, we had a strong end to the year, executing our strategy of accelerating organic revenue growth while maintaining strong margins and free cash flow. Sales growth was approximately 20% in the fourth quarter and 11% for the full year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was approximately 25% in Q4 and 24% for the full year.
Additionally, our strong free cash flow resulted in a conversion ratio of approximately 135% in the fourth quarter and and 94% for the full year in line with our expectations. Finally, we delivered adjusted EPS of $1.27 in the fourth quarter and $4.06 for the full year. We continue to build momentum in executing our strategy to accelerate organic growth and I’d like to highlight a few of our key achievements this year. We ended 2025 with a total of 20 new currency denomination wins specifying our micro optics technology. This result exceeded our Target range of 10 to 15 wins and is one reason why I’m so positive about the long term outlook for the currency business.
Notably, the new wins include five new denominations for the nation of Fiji, which unveiled a new series of currency in December featuring micro optics integrated into polymer substrates. With our currency team’s continued streak of wins and organic backlog up more than 30% year over year, we are highly confident in our sales outlook for this business in 2026. Also in 2025, we successfully completed the final equipment upgrades to support the launch of the new US Currency series. With design and testing finalized, we’re preparing for the release of the new $10 bill later this year and we’re excited, as I know many of you are, for the US treasury announcement of the new design, which we think will likely be in mid-2026.
In 2025 we also secured significant contract renewals in our crane authentication business across major customers including the world’s most recognized sports leagues. As a reminder, earlier last year we announced that we renewed our multi year contract with the National Football League to provide physical product authentication and online brand protection services. And in Q4 we signed a multi year agreement with Major League Baseball to provide security technology for their consumer products. We’re confident that these partnerships, together with other contracts we have with some of the world’s most recognized brands, will continue to drive growth. We also continue to build upon our market leading positions in authentication and traceability technologies.
In 2025, we further strengthened our leadership in global authentication through the creation of Crane Authentication, combining OPSEC security and authentication into one integrated business. We made significant progress executing on our synergies including 8020 initiatives which will drive significant margin accretion in this business in 2026. Additionally, in the fourth quarter we closed our initial equity investment in Antare’s vision, a global leader in providing advanced detection systems and track and trace software, expanding our presence in higher growth end markets including life sciences and food and beverage, and we’re on track to complete this acquisition and take the company private in mid-2026.
Finally to capitalize on increasing demand. We are investing in the future growth in our international currency business and I’ll provide more details on this later in the call. In summary, throughout 2025 we continue to execute our strategy accelerating revenue growth, building momentum in key strategic areas and expanding our market leading positions. We’re taking meaningful steps to position the company for success and we’re in a strong position to deliver long term shareholder value creation. So thank you again to our entire Cranin XT team for your dedication in 2025 and commitment to continued success in 2026. Now with that, let me hand the call over to Christina to review our fourth quarter and full year financial performance in detail as well as our 2026 guidance.
Christina Cristiano — Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Christina thank you Aaron and good morning everyone. I’d also like to echo Aaron’s thanks to our associates for their continued hard work. We appreciate your contributions and your commitment to our customers and shareholders. Starting on Slide 4, sales were 477 million in the quarter, an increase of approximately 20% year over year driven by acquisitions and continued strong performance in Crane currency. Core sales increased approximately 5% reflecting accelerating growth in SAT, partially offset by expected softness in in CPI. Adjusted segment operating margin of approximately 26% declined approximately 120 basis points versus the prior year reflecting additional costs and investments to support increased demand in international currency as well as unfavorable fx which I will speak more about in a few moments.
Adjusted free cash flow conversion was very strong at approximately 135%, underscoring our robust operating discipline and we delivered adjusted EPS of $1.27. Moving to Slide 5. Full year sales were approximately 1.7 billion, an increase of approximately 11% year over year with core sales growth of approximately 1%. Adjusted segment operating margin decreased approximately 260 basis points year over year reflecting the expected impact of acquisitions and additional costs in international currency to deliver on increased demand. Finally, adjusted free cash flow conversion was approximately 94% for the full year and we delivered adjusted EPS of $4.06. Moving to our segments and starting with CPI on slide 6.
Core sales were flat compared with the fourth quarter of 2024 with double digit growth in gaming offset by expected softness in other end markets including vending. Adjusted operating margin improved approximately 340 basis points to approximately 32%, reflecting the impact of disciplined cost management and productivity initiatives. Finally, there was a modest increase in backlog sequentially and the book to bill ratio was above 1. Turning to slide 7 for the full year, CPI core sales were in line with expectations decreasing by approximately 4% year over year, reflecting the indirect impact of tariffs on demand in our vending end market as pricing actions caused customers to delay orders.
Results were also impacted by the final phase of the gaming destocking dynamic we experienced during the first half of 2025. Through strong cost discipline and application of CBS to drive productivity, we maintained adjusted operating margin at approximately 29%. These results reflect excellent work by our CPI team moving to security and authentication technologies on Slide 8 in the fourth quarter, core sales were up approximately 11% driven by strong performance in crane currency where we achieved 11 new microOptics denomination wins in Q4, bringing our full year total to 20 new wins. As a reminder, total sales growth of over 40% includes the acquisition of Delarue Authentication which closed in May.
Adjusted segment operating margin decreased by approximately 420 basis points from the prior year. As shown on Slide 9, we had strong volume growth year over year, increasing our margins. However, this impact was partially offset by several items. First, we experienced unfavorable mix in our international business as compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 based on the specific shipments from our backlog to central banks. Second, we incurred additional costs to meet increased demand including hiring and training of additional production staff, higher freight procurement of substrates from third party suppliers and selected outsourcing of banknote printing. Additionally, there was an unfavorable FX impact on margin as we experienced higher operating costs to manufacture and print our international currency products in Sweden and Malta, incurring costs in Swedish Krona and Euro.
We also made additional investments in Q4 to support anticipated future growth as we continue to execute the development of the next generation of micro optic products with very high customer interest. Finally, the contributions from the acquisition of Delarue and the execution of our synergies across Cranor authentication performed as expected in the quarter turning to slide 10. For the full year, SAT delivered core sales growth of approximately 7% driven by strength in currency which exceeded our expectations. Crane authentication performed as expected with results including eight months of daily reauthentication. In 2025, adjusted operating margin decreased by approximately 380 basis points driven by the expected impact of acquisitions and as discussed earlier, the increased costs in international currency and the unfavorable impact of FX.
Finally, backlog was up more than 50% year over year which gives us high confidence in our growth outlook for sat in 2026. Moving to our balance sheet on slide 11, we ended the year with net leverage of approximately 2.3 tons. During the fourth quarter we secured a term loan of roughly 500 million and drew approximately $130 million to fund the initial equity investment in Ontari’s Vision. We expect to draw the remaining balance in the first half of 2026 to fund the rest of the Ontari’s Vision transaction, which is on track to be fully completed in mid-2026.
Looking ahead, we anticipate using our free cash flow to pay down our outstanding debt and end 2026 with net leverage of approximately 2.3 times. We have an excellent balance sheet, attractive fixed rate, long term debt and substantial liquidity. Our strong free cash flow generation enables us to invest in organic growth, pursue MA to build on our leadership positions and maintain a competitive dividend. Continuing our commitment to a disciplined and balanced capital allocation strategy, yesterday we announced a 6% increase to our annual dividend while preserving ample capacity to deploy capital toward acquisitions in the future that meet our financial criteria.
Moving now to 2026 guidance on slide 12, I would like to highlight that this guidance only includes the interest expense associated with our initial approximately 32% investment in Ontari’s Vision. We anticipate updating guidance in our first quarter earnings announcement after Crane NXT has a greater than 50% ownership stake in Antare’s Vision, at which time its results will be consolidated within green NXT in 2026 we expect full year sales growth of 4 to 6%. In SAT, we expect high single digit growth driven by high single digit growth in US Currency from a favorable mix of banknote demand and low single digit growth in international currency.
Even with a tough comparison to a very strong 2025 in crane authentication, we expect mid single digit core growth including a full year contribution from the De La Rue authentication acquisition. In cpi, we expect sales to be flat year over year reflecting mid single digit growth in service where we are expanding our offerings, offset by approximately flat revenue year over year in our hardware businesses and a low single digit decline in vending as order softness continues following price increases to offset the impact of Chinese tariffs. Before I discuss our profit guidance, I’d like to note that we have changed our profitability metric to adjusted EBITDA from adjusted operating profit.
We believe adjusted EBITDA is a more meaningful representation of our operating performance as it eliminates noncash expenses including depreciation and we will be using this metric going forward. We expect adjusted segment EBITDA margin to be approximately 28% which is approximately flat year over year. This reflects continued high profitability in CPI and the benefit of synergy realization in Crane authentication partially offset by actions we are taking to expand capacity for international currency. Continuing with full year guidance we expect corporate expenses of approximately $58 million. We also expect nonoperating expenses of roughly 60 million, which includes a noncontrolling interest associated with a Crane authentication joint venture and interest expense associated with our initial stake in Ontari’s vision.
We will update our guidance to reflect the impact from Ontari’s vision once we consolidate the company into ECRINE NXT and Aaron will be providing an update on this timing later in the presentation. For the full year we expect our tax rate to be consistent versus 2025 at approximately 21.5% and we expect to deliver full year adjusted EPS in the range of $4.10 to $4.40. Finally, we expect adjusted free cash flow conversion in the range of approximately 90 to 110%, recognizing that the specific timing of currency shipments can vary quarter by quarter. Turning to slide 13, I want to point out that the phasing of revenue in 2026 will be slightly higher in the second half of the year.
In the first quarter we expect to see revenue growth in the mid teens reflecting the impact of the acquisition of delarue authentication and full operations in our US currency business which will drive 45 to 50% growth in sat year over year. This growth will be partially offset by a mid single digit decline in CPI reflecting timing of hardware shipments based on the expected customer order pattern. Adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 19% will be flat in the first quarter year over year reflecting the realization of acquisition synergies in Crane authentication partially offset by the flow through impact of lower CPI volume mix impact of the delarue acquisition and increased currency costs to meet the higher demand for the full year we expect Crane NXT sales to grow in the mid single digits in 2026 with adjusted EBITDA of approximately 25%.
This reflects a continued high adjusted EBITDA margin in CPI of approximately 30% and an approximately 120 basis points improvement year over year in SAT to an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 2025%. Now let me turn the call back to Aaron to provide further details about the actions we are taking to capture growth opportunities in international currency and an update on the Antares Vision transaction.
Aaron W. Saak — President & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Christina. Turning to slide 14, I’d like to take a few moments to discuss the investments we’re making to capture organic growth opportunities in international currency where demand continues to to be very strong. With 20 new micro optic wins in 2025 and organic backlog up over 30% year over year. This is a particularly exciting growth area for us and we see tremendous potential for it to continue in the years ahead. Now, as a reminder, we deliver value to our international currency customers through four primary offerings as shown on the slide. These offerings include the designing of banknotes, substrate manufacturing, production of our proprietary micro optics technology, and banknote printing.
To capitalize on rising demand, we’re taking a variety of actions to expand our capacity. First, we’re leveraging our CBF discipline, which we expect will continue to drive increased productivity annually from continuous improvement initiatives. Second, to supplement these productivity initiatives, we’re adding resources to our design team and increasing staffing in our micro optics and banknote printing facilities to increase capacity and move to 24. 7 operations. Additionally, we are also increasing the amount of products and services we’re procuring from a select group of suppliers and partners. This includes purchasing additional substrates beyond our current capacity and partnering with select government printworks for banknote printing.
We significantly increased these activities in Q4 and expect them to continue into 2026 to meet the growing demand for 2026. In total, we expect additional cost of approximately 4 million in SAT related to these actions, but reducing substantially in 2027 as our internal productivity programs are executed. Finally, we are investing in capacity expansion with new micro optics production lines in our Nashua, New Hampshire facility and in our facility in Malta. Based on these investments in organic growth, we expect CAPEX to increase to approximately 7% of currency’s revenue in 2026. Even with these investments, we expect Crane NXT’s capex spending to continue to be in the range of 3 to 5% of sales in total.
Additionally, for 2026 we expect approximately $4 million of added OpEx to support micro optic product development design and these capacity expansion programs. In total, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins to improve by approximately 120 basis points in SAT and a more detailed bridge of the 2026 year over year SAT margins is provided in a slide in the Appendix. In summary, we’re excited about the long term growth opportunities these actions will drive and we’ll share more about those programs at our upcoming Investor day. Moving to slide 15, I want to provide an update on the Antares vision transaction in Q4 2025 we completed the first step of the transaction, the acquiring approximately 32% of the company from its largest shareholders and I’m happy to report that we received approval from the Italian regulators to move forward with step two of the transaction and will launch a mandatory public tender offer to all remaining shareholders in February.
We expect this process will be completed by the end of Q1, at which time we will own over 50% of the shares of Antare’s Vision and consolidate the results under Crane MXT. As Christina mentioned earlier, we’ll provide updated 2026 guidance based on the consolidation of Antare’s vision during our Q1 earnings in May. Finally, in Q2, we will start step 3 of the transaction to take the company private. As a reminder, Crane NXT has secured voting agreements with the largest shareholders of Antare’s Vision, which ensures our ability to take the company private after the completion of the mandatory tender process.
We expect the Take Private process will be completed in mid-2026. In closing, I want to reiterate a few key points from our call today. First, we’re continuing to execute our strategy of accelerating growth while maintaining strong margins and robust free cash flow. Second, we continue to build momentum in our strategic growth areas. Our team is ready for the launch of the US new series of banknotes starting with the $10 bill in 2026. International currency’s strong performance is exceeding our expectations and we’re taking actions to drive further growth opportunities and expand our leadership in this market.
Based on our technology in Crane authentication, we took actions in 25 to accelerate the realization of synergies and we expect to see significant margin accretion in 2026 as a result. And finally, the Antares Vision acquisition is on track and we look forward to welcoming the entire Antares Vision team to Crane NXT in 2026. With all of these actions, I believe we are well positioned to accelerate growth in 2026 and beyond and deliver significant value creation to our shareholders. And I look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming Investor Day on February 25th in New York City, where we’ll share more details on our strategy, growth opportunities and financial priorities.
We’ll also be showcasing some of our advanced technologies and solutions during the event. So thank you again for your time this morning and I would like to also thank our Crane NXT team members across the world for their commitment to our customers, our communities and all of our stakeholders. And now operator, we’re ready to take our first question.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you so much. And as a reminder to ask a question, press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press star 11. Again, we ask that you please keep your questions to one and one follow up. One moment for our first question comes from the line of Matt Somerville with DA Davidson. Please proceed.
Matthew Roache
Thanks. Morning.
Aaron W. Saak
Good morning, Matt.
Matt Summerville
Maybe to start with sat. As I think about the margin performance in Q4, kind of sequentially you got 30 plus million of additional revenue, 2 million less op dollars. And I realize you have the investments. You called that out in the waterfall chart. But I guess I’m wondering why this business, if demand is that strong, can’t do more to test price elasticity in the market given the nature of what you’re selling and kind of the criticality, especially if this decisioning is being done through an 80 20. Len.
Aaron W. Saak
Hey, thanks for that question, Matt, and good morning again. You know, I’d start by saying, as you see in our prepared remarks and as you referenced the waterfall, we’re really encouraged by the growth and the backlog that we have in international currency. We strongly believe and I’m highly confident this is setting us up for sustainable growth and that’s why we’re making these investments. Now to your point on, on pricing and the flow through of that, just a reminder, Matt, most if not all of these contracts that we’re delivering in any quarter have been put into our backlog well before.
So we’re executing this backlog. That’s what gives us great visibility into 2026. This is not a book and ship business. And so with that being said, as we’re looking forward here as new contracts come into the backlog, we are very focused on ensuring we are maximizing our value and the pricing power we have with our leading technology. So I feel confident that the team’s doing that.
Matt Summerville
And then as a follow up, obviously there’s a few moving pieces. Two things. One, can you talk a little more explicitly about the EPS cadence as we move throughout the year, particularly given some of the pluses and minuses we see you referenced in the first quarter and then you mentioned being able to see some cost recovery on some of these investments. If I Look at say 12 million in 25 that you call out in Waterfall, another four that you call out in the 26 Waterfall, that’s 16. How much of that do you think can ultimately be recouped? Looking out to next year.
Thank you.
Christina Cristiano
Well, maybe I’ll start with that one and then Aaron can jump in if he likes to. So I mean, just in total, you know, we feel confidence in our confidence in our guidance for 2026 and the outlook that we set. And so Our range of $4.10 to $4.40 reflects continued strength in currency and sales and authentication continuing at MSD and softness in CPI driven mostly by the hardware businesses and vending, which continues to experience Softness as a result of the tariffs in terms of the phasing, as we said, we’ll see accelerating growth throughout the year and the results will be slightly skewed toward the second half from the first half.
So specific to your question Matt, EPS will accelerate through the first half and then level off a little bit in the back half of the year to get to that total of 4.10 to to 440 overall the guidance is balanced and we think we’ve taken a prudent approach particularly with CPI with our flat guide on sales for the full year.
Aaron W. Saak
Matt. Hey, I’ll add in too on the recovery of some of the cost or the read through of that on a go forward basis. I think the right way to think about this, as you’ve seen, we’re going to increase adjusted EBITDA margins in the SAT segment by about 120 basis points in 2026. We should expect to see that kind of continued incremental improvement directionally on a go forward basis Inside of sat, obviously there’s some mix there that will play as you know, with our US currency and we’ll wait and see the volume distribution later in 2026.
But I think that’s the kind of frame I would put on it. So we are going to continue to be on this March now of increasing EBITDA margin and significant expansion in SAT on a go forward basis. Highly confident of that.
Matt Summerville
Got it. Thank you guys.
Aaron W. Saak
Thanks.
operator
Thank you. Our next question is from Mike Halloran with Baird. Please proceed.
Mike Holoran
Good morning everyone.
Aaron W. Saak
Good morning Mike.
Mike Holoran
Hey, good morning. So a couple questions. You know, maybe you could just talk to you about the sequential CPI dynamics. What’s happening in the first quarter maybe specifically and what type of recovery are you expecting? Seems a little light seasonally going into the first quarter. So you know, obviously the gaming commentary Christina highlighted earlier but is there any other destocking going on in the broader piece there and how do you expect that dynamic to trend out through the year?
Christina Cristiano
Hey Mike, thanks for that question and I’ll just. It’s worth repeating that CPI is expected to be flat in 2026 with a 30% EBITDA margin and continued very strong free cash flow conversion. And so if we just go through cpi, overall services will continue to grow at mid single digits and that’ll be consistent throughout the year. We expect vending to be down in the low single digits with that continued softness from tariffs and that will improve in the second half based on the comp to 2025. If you remember the tariff headwind that we experienced began really toward the back half of 2025.
So we’ll get a better comp in 26 as a result of that. Now lastly, our hardware businesses will be approximately flat for the full year and the phasing here is more skewed to the back half of the year and that’s just based on customer order patterns. So overall we have high visibility into that hardware ordering pattern and feel confident in the full year guide. Q1 will be the lowest quarter. We’ll see accelerating growth as the year progresses.
Mike Holoran
Thank you. And then what’s embedded in the expectations this year for the $10 bill onboarding? Is there an expectation for a second half ramp on that business specifically? And then secondarily and related maybe could you just talk about how you’re expecting the international business to flow as you work through the year on the currency side specifically, as you’re working with these outside vendors and you’re ramping your own capacity. Is that a constraint at all in the short term in meeting demand? And does that accelerate as you work. Through the year or because of these. Arrangements, are you allowed to maybe more level loaded and meet the needs?
Aaron W. Saak
Yeah, hey, thanks for that Matt. Why don’t I take the US question and Christina will jump in here on the international linearity question. We’re very highly, you know, very highly confident here, Mike, that the U.S. treasury is going to make an announcement mid year on the 10. We are ourselves already working on the 50 and feel again highly confident that that design will introduce sophisticated security features. And so when you think about our guide, then I think we’re just being prudent here on when they actually make the announcement. We look at it to be probably going into full consumer release more at the end of the year.
Call it 4Q. And so that’s what we’ve kind of put in the guidance. We think that that’s probably prudent for 2026.
Mike Holoran
Thank you.
Christina Cristiano
And just in terms, I’m sorry,
Aaron W. Saak
we got to follow up.
Christina Cristiano
I was just going to follow up on the international phasing. As you know, we’ll have a very tough comp in Q4 of 2026 based on the acceleration that we saw this year in Q4. So you’ll see that, you know that international demand accelerating in the year, but a very tough couple comp in the end of the year. And then just on cost, just a reminder that Q1 will have the lowest profitability just based on these incremental costs which are more heavily phased toward the first half of the year and we’ll see that profitability improving as the year progresses.
Aaron W. Saak
Hey, I’ll just add as close out your question here, Mike. You know, with the actions we’re taking both on productivity, the staffing, the capacity expansion, it’s not really a limit to us. We’re going to see very nice growth in international currency. Just this Q4, which was exceptional for us, puts a pretty tough comp on the back half of next year. So I think we’re in a really good position to continue to meet the customer demand and we see a very healthy pipeline of opportunities going forward. And that’s what’s also giving us a lot of confidence here for the investments and many years of sustained growth in this business.
operator
Thank you so much. Our next question is from Bob Labick. Please go ahead. From cjs.
Bob Labik
Thank you. Good morning and thanks for taking our questions.
Aaron W. Saak
Good morning, Bob.
Bob Labik
Thanks for the incremental information on the international currency capacity. I wanted to stick on that theme. I think the demand or your results for international currency growth have been stronger than expected probably a year or two ago. And that’s why you’re adding this capacity. And we’re talking about all this now. What are the drivers for the kind of faster growth in international currency? For Crane, I guess it’s question number one. How sustainable and how does this impact your goal of 10 to 15 new micro optics per year? Was there a pull forward or do. You still think you can do that going forward? And how are you seeing the market?
Aaron W. Saak
Hey, thanks Bob for that question. Well, when you think about what’s driving this over performance in our international currency business, it really comes down to three things. Number one is a market driver of increased counterfeiting is occurring in the market, particularly in the emerging markets. And with some of our core customers, that’s forcing them in, in many ways to redesign their currency. And they’re always putting on higher security features. And we’re simply, number one, we’ve got the best set of security features in the market and we are a natural net winner when that occurs. Secondly is simply the growth in emerging economies coupled with the inflation that they’re seeing.
And remember, our international currency business is predominantly operating in emerging markets. So again, we’re kind of a net beneficiary of that dynamic. And then finally third is the time to redesign that most governments typically go through is accelerating. And that’s a combination motivated by several factors. But in part what’s happening is one country redesigns their currency. The neighboring countries then start the process to do that. And we think The US redesign process helps that as well as new security features are going to get rolled out in the US So we see all three of these from increased counterfeiting growth in emerging economies and faster redesign times as durable trends in this currency business.
And it’s why we see very strong sustainable growth over the long term. And I would expect we’ll continue to be in that range of 10 to 15 wins, Bob, and that’s what the target we would put out. But I think as you saw this year there’s momentum in our business and certainly this year we exceeded that target.
Bob Labik
Okay, super appreciate that. And then on last call you discussed international currency security only I believe contract win with a Latin American contract country that you’ll tell us more about I think in the future, I guess. Any update there and are there many more security only opportunities that you’re bidding out on or how does that play out?
Aaron W. Saak
Thanks again for that, Bob. I will be the first to tell you, I cannot wait to tell you what that country is. And we’re just in a position given our contract with them that we cannot announce that. But it’s a significant step forward for us not only with the country but with the security features that they’ve adopted that we think will be an exceptional reference customer for us going forward. But we’re going to have to wait for that as we move forward. Remember, our core strategy inside of Crane currency is to sell advanced security features and those features are embedded in our micro optics.
They’re the highest margin part of our business. And so we’re out there pursuing several opportunities to sell those security features and get them into governments that may print their currency like we do here in the US or print the currency for them provided they incorporate our micro optic features. And the pipeline here is as strong as it’s ever been. And it’s why we’re making the investments that we have to make right now in our design capabilities and engineering capabilities to answer those tenders and win them in the future. So I feel more positive quite frankly Bob, than we ever thought we would feel versus as you referenced two years ago, based on what we see in the market.
operator
Thank you. One moment for our next question that comes from the line of Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Please proceed.
Ian Zaffino
Hi, thank you very much. Great quarter.
Aaron W. Saak
Thank you.
Ian Zaffino
So the question would be on Sat, if we look at the fourth quarter, is there anything you could give us a breakout of maybe what the currency piece grew and maybe what the non currency piece grew? I don’t know if you have the exact number, but maybe just directionally just trying to understand the different pieces in that segment.
Aaron W. Saak
Thanks. Yeah, sure. Ian, if you look at it, you know, currency was up high double digits in the fourth quarter. That was based on really on the strength of international currency. And as I think you know, we’ve had headwinds on a comp basis with the US just due to the volume in 2025. So the good news there is that obviously that corrects itself and we’re going to get to high single digit growth next year on the full year for the U.S. currency. So very strong high double digit growth in currency. Our Delarue acquisition performed just as we planned and we saw lower growth, call it in the legacy OPSEC business.
But that was really intentional because of the 8020 work that we did and we talked about in the third quarter. So I would say to perform kind of on our plan and with the synergy activities that you see in the bridge, we actually read through some nice incremental margin simply on the execution of the synergies which are coming in, as Christina said, ahead of our schedule.
Ian Zaffino
Okay, thanks. And then as a follow up on the $10 note, I know you talked a little bit about this, a lot about it, but you know, how do we think about when it’s going to reach run rate production? And I guess when you’re saying it’s going to be back end, you know, is it based on when the government announces the launch? You know, so, so what are kind of the goalposts we need to look at as far as what’s being communicated by the government versus what’s going on with your business? And I’d imagine you might have a heads up on that because you would have to stock it, you know, pre announcement or am I not thinking about that?
Aaron W. Saak
Right, thanks. No, you’re, you’re. Ian, good question. You’re thinking about it exactly correctly. We are, you know, closely working with the treasury on setting up the right levels of inventory ahead of the public launch. It does still depend on exactly when they decide to launch it. That’s where to the prior question. I would say we’re being prudent, say we think that starts to really hit in Q4 of this year. That’s what we put in our estimates and influenced our guide. That’s going to get crystallized here I would say in the next three months to be precise.
And what I would say Ian, to probably the broader question that I know you’re asking and others about the impact of the US currency program and where it’s at. That’s something we’re obviously going to spend a little more time and dive deeper into at our investor day and provide some more insights of how we see the impact of that playing out.
operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Bobby Brooks
Hey guys, thank you for taking my question first. One I’ve got is just great to hear about the multiple professional sports leagues renewing secure authentication and security contracts. But I was curious if we could try to get a sense on the financial benefit from that. And then secondly, did those renewals see additional tech or services layered on? I’m just trying to get a sense of maybe what the dollar based net retention was of those leagues re upping their contracts.
Christina Cristiano
Hey Bobbi, I’ll take that one. And hey, we’re super excited to continue a partnership with a flagship customer like the mlb. Just like we announced at the NFL last year, these are great customers that we have long standing relationships with. We can’t reveal too much of the details, as you can imagine about their contract, but in this case we’re providing product authentication and licensee management software and it’s a great recurring revenue stream because as you know, once we get engaged with a customer it’s very sticky. It’s a very sticky arrangement that drives future recurring revenues.
So we’re very excited about this and we’ll continue to work with them to partner on our offerings and what more we can offer them as part of the portfolio and just continue our relationship with them.
Bobby Brooks
Got it. Appreciate that color. And then could you remind US so the 24 hour staffing for micro Optics Productions and the banknote printing, that’s great to hear. But could you remind us, was that from like previously, were they just doing a 40 hour workweek or was it more like an 80 hour workweek? And secondly, could you just remind us like when those transition to 24, 247 shifts?
Aaron W. Saak
Yeah, so it varied a little bit Bobby, based on each of the sites. Quite frankly, you know, you could probably think of it as more of like 245 directionally.
And we are in the process of ramping up to the 247 which we’ll be at here in Q1. You know, just a reminder, you know, these are very highly complex and secure operations. So ramping up is not just something that happens with the flip of the switch. You know, we’re hiring our direct labor. They have to go through a security clearance as well as some fairly intense training to be operating on our Micro Optics and banknote printing lines. So there is with that just a very natural ramp up period to get us there again. Expect that to be completed here as we exit Q1 and feel very good we’re on the track to that.
But at that point then is why we’re making the investments to add another line in Nashua and particularly excited about the expansion in Malta which gives us more obvious capacity, creates redundancy in our operation which is very good and quite frankly puts us closer to our customers with a flag planted now in Europe for micro optics and very close to our emerging market customers. All of which we see as an excellent setup for sustaining the growth of this business long term.
operator
Thank you so much and this will conclude our Q and A session for today and I will pass it back to Aaron Saik, President and CEO for closing comments.
Aaron W. Saak
Well, thank you Operator. As we conclude today’s call, I again just want to thank everyone on the Crane NXT team for their strong efforts in 2025. I’m excited about the direction of the company and the momentum we’re building to accelerate growth and I look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming Investor Day on February 25th in New York to tell you more about our plans for 2026 and beyond. And so until then, take care and I hope you all have a great day.
operator
This concludes our conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.