Pentair plc Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Pentair plc (NYSE: PNR) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Apr. 28, 2026

Presentation

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Pentair First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question you may press star and then one Using a touch tone telephone. To withdraw your questions you may press star and two. Please also note today’s event is being recorded.

At this time I’d like to turn the conference call over to Shelley Hubbard, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ma’, am. Please go ahead.

Shelly Hubbard — Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. And welcome to Pentair’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. On the call with me are John Stouch, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Nick Brazis, our Chief Financial Officer. On today’s call, we will provide details on our first quarter performance as outlined in this morning’s press release. On the Pantera Investor Relations website you can find our earnings release and slide deck which is intended to supplement our prepared remarks during today’s call and provide a reconciliation of differences between GAAP and non GAAP financial measures that we will reference.

The non GAAP financial measures provided should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with gaap. They are included as additional clarifying items to aid investors in further understanding the company’s performance in addition to the impact these items and events have on the financial results. Before we begin, let me remind you that during our presentation today we will make forward looking statements which are predictions, projections or other statements about future events.

Listeners are cautioned that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Pentair. These risks and uncertainties can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We advise listeners to carefully review the risk factors in our Most recent Form 10Q and Form 10K.

Please note that during the presentation today we Will be making references to record financial results. These references reflect the time period post the nvent separation in 2018 unless noted otherwise. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for questions. Please limit your questions to 2 and re enter the queue to allow everyone an opportunity to participate.

I will now turn the call over to John.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you Shelley and good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with our long term Strategy on Slide 4. At our investor Day in March, we outlined our long term strategy. Growth Initiatives, Favorable Secular Trends, Innovation Pipeline and our financial growth outlook. We are very excited about the next level of growth and profitability that we expect will build upon the structural improvements we’ve made to our operating model over the last several years to drive more durable financial performance during economic cycles.

We believe our balanced water portfolio is uniquely positioned to drive superior value across our move, improve and enjoy water segments. We are focused on accelerating growth through innovation and elite customer experiences. We expect to continue to see strong execution, drive profitable growth and accelerate operational efficiencies over the next few years and our strong cash flow and ROIC provide flexibility for enhanced value creation. Let’s move to the Executive summary on slide 5. In Q1 we delivered another solid quarter supported by disciplined execution and continued focus on our Pentair Business System Tools.

Sales increased 3%, adjusted operating income increased 7%, ROS expanded by 100 basis points to 25.0%. Our 16th consecutive quarter of margin expansion and adjusted EPS rose double digits to $1.22. Flow delivered strong financial and operational performance in the quarter and water solutions and pool also contributed to core sales growth and margin expansion. Our strategy supported by our Pentair Business System tools including transformation processes inclusive of 80:20 continues to guide our execution across the company.

At our Investor Day in March, we introduced new long term financial targets through 2028, reflecting our confidence in our value creation model. We repurchased 200 million of outstanding shares in the open market during Q1. We also achieved dividend king status marking our 50th consecutive year of higher dividends. We continue to see a range of underlying demand drivers including aging US Infrastructure, population growth in Sunbelt states, evolving customer demand in beverage premiumization in foodservice with an emphasis on reliability and serviceability and growth in the aftermarket.

We also had several key wins in Q1 including sales growth with our top customers, quad one, strong productivity driven by the Pentair Business system, a solid innovation pipeline across our segments and continued execution against our strategy. Our 2026 outlook reflects our current expectations and continued confidence in our business model and the resilience of our end markets. We plan to continue investing in digital and AI enabled solutions, strengthening our portfolio and returning capital to shareholders while advancing our efforts in sustainable water technologies.

For full year 2026 we narrowed our adjusted EPS guidance range to $5.30 to $5.40, raising the low end by $0.05 versus our initial outlook at the midpoint. This represents 9% growth year over year. We remain focused as we navigate macro volatility and the broader operating environment and we are taking actions to manage risk and support consistent execution. We are watching housing and related markets closely along with the pace of nonresidential investment, and we remain focused on prudent pricing, productivity and execution to manage through the environment.

Now let’s turn to our strategic actions driving performance on slide 6. We are off to a solid start in 2026 with Q1 performance supported by targeted growth initiatives, strong productivity execution and disciplined delivery across our water portfolio. Q1 also reflected strong segment income and return on sales performance across all three segments. We delivered 3% sales growth despite ongoing headwinds in the residential markets driven by execution on our growth initiatives, we are investing in technology and capabilities to expand Poole’s total addressable market, accelerate growth in commercial buildings and data center infrastructure, and support US water infrastructure needs.

We’ve also strengthened digital capabilities and leveraged our global technology and R and D resources across the portfolio and we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and a disciplined capital deployment strategy Before I turn it over to Nick, I want to thank Jerome Pedretti for 20 years of outstanding leadership throughout his career. Jerome has delivered superior results in all of the roles he has held. He has taken on difficult challenges and has always optimized the businesses and engaged employees in the Pentair way.

And I and the ELT will personally miss his passionate debates with me and of course his enthusiasm for French and Italian food and wines. I also want to thank Shelley Hubbard for over three years of superior and professional engagement with shareholders. She has elevated our investor outreach and discussions and we wish her well in her new role. Shelley has accepted a new position as VP of Investor Relations for a much larger company that helps her to further her development and broaden her experience.

An announcement regarding Shelly will be issued by our new company in the near future. Shelly will continue with Pentair through May 1. We are using this opportunity to rotate Jeff Thompson, the CFO of our Flow and Water Solutions segments, into the VP Investor Relations role and we are confident that Jeff will learn quickly and be able to share unique insights regarding our PBS playbook and business positioning.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Nick to walk through our financial Results and our 2026 guidance in more detail. Nick?

Nick Brazis — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you John and good morning everyone. Let’s start on slide 7. We delivered a first quarter record for Pentair sales and adjusted operating income. Additionally, we enhanced return on sales across each of our three segments. In Q1 we reported sales of over $1 billion, up 3%. Another adjusted operating income of $259 million up 7%, return on sales of 25.0%, an increase of 100 basis points and adjusted earning per share of $1.22 up 10%. Core sales were up 1% year over year driven by a 2% increase in flow and a 1% increase in both Water Solutions and pool.

Moving to adjusted operating income driven by our long term plan, our pentair business system and our targeted ongoing structural cost improvement actions, we achieved 100 basis points of margin expansion in Q1 price offset inflation and we delivered net productivity of $21 million while continuing to invest in targeted growth initiatives and our innovation pipeline. Please turn to Slide 8. Flow sales were up 11% year over year to $258 million driven by our Hydrostop acquisition, growth in Quad One accounts and a focus on growing flow control equipment and aftermarket sales for the aging US Water infrastructure, data centers and other commercial buildings.

As a reminder, last quarter we announced that we have strategically combined our flow residential business and our residential business within water solutions beginning Q1 2026. Additionally, our long range plan as communicated in Q1 aims to deliver mid single digit growth within our flow segment with margin and income expansion driven by structural cost improvements and a focus on growth within our Quad One customers. Segment income grew 22% and return on sales expanded 210 basis points to 23.7% driven by strong sales growth which as mentioned includes the acquisition of Hydrostop in Q3 last year.

Finally, price offset inflation. Please turn to slide 9. In Q1 Water Solutions sales declined 1% to $391 million driven primarily by our targeted portfolio shaping and exit of the commercial services business in Q2 of 2025. The Pro channel grew mid teens during the quarter reflecting gains supported by our decision to combine the residential Flow and residential water Solutions businesses to both drive structural cost improvements and bring targeted Quad 1 channel synergies to our pro channels. We continue to drive ongoing structural cost improvements and our make buy strategies and tools.

We’ve made progress on our structural cost initiatives but remain early in those actions and opportunities as we continue to deploy our Pentair business System. Segment income grew 6% to $100 million and return on sales increased 160 basis points to 25.5% primarily driven by our Pentair business system productivity savings the contribution of price offset inflation. Please turn to Slide 10. In Q1 Pool sales increased 1% to $387 million. Segment income was $128 million up 2%. Return on sales increased 30 basis points to approximately 33% price offset inflation and our Pentair business system drove continued net productivity.

We’re focused on investing in this business through a regional focus with targeted and unique programs in sales and marketing, field service and customer service support, new product innovation and break that we believe should grow the total addressable market for Pool and elevate our brand and offerings. Please turn to Slide 11. Our balance sheet remains strong and our return on invested Capital increased to 16.6% from 15.8% a year ago reflecting our strong commitment to ongoing shareholder value creation.

Our net debt leverage ratio is 1.7x. In Q1 we repurchased $200 million of shares reflecting the continued confidence in our strategy, our Pentair business system and our team’s ability to execute. We have also increased our dividend by 8% and achieved our 50th consecutive year of dividend increases, making Pentair a dividend king while maintaining our dividend Aristocrat status. Our significant annual free cash flow generation has enabled us to strategically deploy capital via dividends, debt paydown, share repurchases and strategic acquisitions.

We plan to remain disciplined with our capital and have flexibility to strategically allocate capital to areas with the highest shareholder returns and are planning additional share repurchases during 2026 reflecting our confidence in our ability to execute on our long term strategy. Let’s turn to our outlook on Slide 12. For the full year we are increasing our adjusted EPS guidance Midpoint to approximately $5.35 with a range of $5.30 to $5.40 which is up roughly 8 to 10% year over year. Also for the full year we expect total PentaIR sales in 2026 to be up approximately 2 to 4%.

We expect flow sales to be up approximately mid single digits to high single digits and in line with our long term plan. Water Solution sales are expected to be approximately flat with core sales up approximately low single digits and and in line with our long term plan and pool sales are expected to increase approximately 1 to 3% in 2026. While we’re encouraged by sell through dynamics in Q1 sell through levels for this pool season which concludes in Q3 of 2026 may require our channel partners to reduce purchases in Q2 and Q3 to reflect 2026 pool industry growth.

Therefore, we evaluate a wider range of pool revenue and income scenarios and we have incorporated these assumptions and scenarios into our guidance Update. We expect total Pentair adjusted operating income to increase approximately 6 to 8% with return on sales expansion of roughly 100 basis points to approximately 26%. We expect price to offset inflation and expect another strong year of pentair business system driven productivity of approximately $70 million net of investment. We continue to evaluate and respond to ongoing changes in U.S.

Tariffs, inflation and global supply chain impacts. We expect tariffs and inflation to have a net neutral impact over the year. For the second quarter, we expect sales to be up approximately 1%. We expect flow sales to be up approximately high single digits which includes our hydrostop acquisition with approximately 10 million of sales in the quarter. At approximately 30% return on sales, we anticipate water solution sales to be down approximately low single digits with core sales approximately flat reflecting the commercial services sale in Q2 2025.

Commercial watercore sales are expected to be up approximately low single digits and pool sales are expected to be Approximately flat to up 1% reflecting our active management of sell in and sell out Dynamics. We expect second quarter adjusted operating income to increase approximately 5 to 6%. We’re also introducing adjusted EPS guidance for the second quarter of approximately $1.47 to $1.50, up roughly 6 to 8%. We’re pleased with our performance in Q1. We have a balanced water portfolio and a global team with a proven track record of delivering our near and long term strategies. And we are focused on delivering our new near and long term plans for our shareholders, our customers and our employees.

I’d like to now turn the call over to the operator for Q and A, after which John will have a few closing remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions. Thank you.

Question & Answers

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press STAR and then one on your Touchstone phones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up the handset prior to pressing the keys to withdraw your questions, you may press Star. And two, we do ask that you please limit yourselves to one question and a single follow up. Please note that you may rejoin the question queue if you have additional questions. Again, that is STAR and then one to join the question queue at this time. We will pause momentarily to assemble the roster. And our first question today comes from Nathan Jones from Stifel. Please go ahead with your question.

Adam Farley

Yeah, good morning, this is Adam Farley on for Nathan. My first question is on the full year sales guidance. So price and FX tailwinds are likely to fade through the year as we lap year’s increases in price with volume likely needing to make up the shortfall. Could you talk about areas of the business that are expected to see volume improvement as the year progresses.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks for your question. We’re seeing green shoots in our commercial water and water solutions business. We’re seeing volume improvements across pockets of our fleet flow business as well. Several of our innovation and targeted market efforts in those businesses are reading out and as communicated in our investor day back in Q1, we’re really working to drive both margin expansion and volume expansion in our commercial water solutions business and of course in our pool business as well. With margin expansion from our flow and water quality management businesses coming more from our structural cost efforts.

Adam Farley

All right, thank you for that. And then thinking about following up on that margin expansion, maybe you could talk about where you’re seeing better than expected productivity and then again maybe talk about the impact of volume on that productivity and I’ll go there. Thank you.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we saw productivity gains that exceeded our plan really across the enterprise, but specifically within our commercial water solutions and within our water quality management business. So our water solutions business in aggregate drove incremental net productivity. And I would just remind everyone that our transformation and productivity numbers are net of investment and so driving that margin expansion within the commercial water business and incremental volume beyond what we had originally planned for Q1 really rode out nicely in the water solutions business.

And then in pockets of our flow business we saw additional productivity gains and of course about 30 basis points, points of margin improvement in pool, but really drove nice productivity gains within the water Solutions business in Q1. And we’re working to continue to drive that through the year.

Operator

Our next question comes from Steve Volkan from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.

Steve Volkmann — Analyst, Jefferies

Hi, good morning guys. Thank you for taking my question.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Steve Volkmann — Analyst, Jefferies

I guess I wanted to focus a little on the pool segment. I guess I was a little by the decline there given sort of what we hear from other players in the channel doing some strong early buys. Maybe that’s consistent. Do you think maybe they overdid it on the early buys? I guess you had some commentary about some potential destocking as the year progresses. Can you just tease that out a little for us?

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I mean again, I think we have two components to our growth. The first one is we measure and manage sell through growth, which is equal to what you see as the channel distribution measurements. So generally in line with all of those external pulse points that you’re hearing. But we also have ship in growth or sell in growth that goes into the channel. And as we shared at the end of Q4 and into our full year guidance, we think that the current sell through activity doesn’t warrant a big pickup in the selling activity. And we’re expecting that to work its way out through Q2 and Q3 with lower shipments for us and then ultimately better long term dynamics as we head into 2027 pool season.

Steve Volkmann — Analyst, Jefferies

Okay, great, that’s helpful. And any comment on any trends you’re seeing relative to market share in the pool business?

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we feel good about our positions. I mean, I think what we’re seeing in the dynamics is we have high end premium pools, we have mid range pools and remodeling and then you ultimately have the aftermarket. And the challenge is that we’re just not seeing overall volume growth across that pool industry as a whole. And what you’re seeing is a series of defeaturing that’s happening in the aftermarket or push outs from consumer discretionary. But overall I think we’re looking at overall volume flat on the sell through side and taking a lot of activity and energy to achieve that. But ultimately we’re hanging in there in what I would say is a flattish market.

Operator

Our next question comes from Nigel Koh from Wolf Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Nigel Coe — Analyst, Wolf Research

Oh, thanks. Good morning. Thanks for the question. Maybe could we just touch on the tariffs? We’ve obviously seen some changes in the, in the regime during the quarter. I think you said $30 million of impact this year. Just curious how that might be changing.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I mean I think tariffs are net. Net slightly more than we currently expected. Not by a lot, Nigel, but a little bit more. And we feel that we’ve pushed that price appropriately to the channel. I do want to also mention that there is the tariffs and then what I would call incremental inflation. You know, we are seeing some commodities running hotter right now than they were initially expected. And again we have taken price actions to neutralize those in our full year guidance forecast. So a little bit of benefit from one side of the tariffs. After the Supreme Court it was little. And then we had the incremental 232 tariffs that offset it. And then we priced effectively on both of those elements.

Nick Brazis — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Jon. Just a reminder, Nigel, about 70% of our sales go through two step distribution. And when we think about the year we’re planning for price to offset those inflationary headwinds, whether they be tariff, commodity or otherwise.

Nigel Coe — Analyst, Wolf Research

Okay, that’s great. And just curious then how is price looking over the balance of the year from here?

Nick Brazis — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I would say for the aggregate of pentair, we’re looking at low single digit price across the year and Expected approximately flat volume across the full year.

Operator

Our next question comes from Patrick Bauman from JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Patrick Baumann — Analyst, JP Morgan

Oh, hi, good morning. I had a quick question on your assumptions related to sell through for the pool markets this year. What is embedded in kind of your new guide of 1 to 3% for the segment for industry sell through,

Nick Brazis — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Flattish on volume plus price. So that’s generally what we’ve assumed in this current outlook.

Patrick Baumann — Analyst, JP Morgan

Flattish volume sell through for the industry plus

Nick Brazis — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Price. Plus price. Yep. So you have price plus flattish volume for sell through.

Patrick Baumann — Analyst, JP Morgan

Understood. And then a quick one on the capital allocation side. Did I hear you say you’re going to do additional share repurchases this year? Is that embedded in guidance or did I mischiev that earlier? No, that’s

Nick Brazis — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

A great question. We expect to generate strong free cash flow in 2026 like we have historically. About 100% of our net income converting into free cash flow. We did buy $200 million worth of shares in Q1 and we expect to remain active in 2026 in share repurchases. But none of those additional share repurchases are reflected in our current 2026 full year guide.

Operator

Our next question comes from Dean Dre from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Deane Dray — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And also want to wish Shelley all the best. Just a question. This came up at the analyst day, but just want to see if we’ve seen any evidence of this. You said there’s still lots of opportunities in 80 20, are there? Part of it is, you know, the walk away revenues, the walk away from some customers, walk away shutting down some product lines. Have we seen any of the net effects on those revenues going away? Just what’s baked into the guide there. Thank you.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we saw some of that in 2025, Dean. And we’re actively managing our Quad One customers, which are our top tier customers, buying our top tier products and ultimately seeing really good results across the portfolio. Regarding that, there are temptations of the businesses to go back after some of those 20s, as we mentioned, and we’re really pushing back on those efforts. Unless it is a misplaced 20. Maybe they were a big customer regionally and we looked at them nationally. That would be the only reason that we’d go back to that, Dean. But we’re not seeing further headwinds from 8020 actions in 2026 results.

Yeah, and pockets of our businesses, we are seeing growth with our Quad One customers. And so you’ve got that balance of the exits we made and then the growth with Quad One, I mentioned it on the prepared remarks. In our water solutions business we grew mid teens with our pro channel while we continue to drive out some of the structural cost opportunities within water quality management. So those Quad one growth opportunities are starting to read out for us and we’re excited about what that’s going to continue to deliver.

Deane Dray — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Good to hear. And then just a second question on can you expand on the point in pool on some of the new product innovation and expansion of the tam? You know I know there are some product areas that you’ve said Pantair is not interested like we wouldn’t expect to see in to be in chemicals for example but just kind of where are attractive areas they might be. Is it in the automation side and how much does the TAM increase? Thanks.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah it is partially in the automation side. So we have a great and sticky product offering already with our IntelliCenter and with our pumping technology. So so we do expect to continue to expand the TAM with the automation capabilities that we deliver and are expecting to deliver in the future. And then additionally at our investor day we talked about some new purification and membrane technologies that we’re excited about bringing to market. So both of those are TAM expanders for us and we’re excited to continue to develop those in addition to that digital connectivity of the pad.

Operator

Our next question comes from Julian Mitchell from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.

Julian Mitchell — Analyst, Barclays

Hi, good morning and just wanted to echo Dean’s thanks and best wishes to Shelley. Just first off just trying to understand the overall sort of headline company wide slight guidance changes. So you have slightly lower sales guide because of the pool uncertainty but I think you pushed up your OP profit guide slightly but that’s with sort of an unchanged productivity savings guide at 70 million and that’s with the sales guide coming down a touch. So maybe help us understand sort of the moving parts within that and anything by segment that’s changed in your line of thinking versus prior guidelines.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, real quick Julianne, just remind you we have a large, you know we’re 4 billion plus and we do have regional revenue in Europe and Asia as well. And in this guide we’ve reflected a little bit lower outlooks in those regions relative to some of the supply chain challenges related to what’s going on in the Middle East. We are seeing those and reflected those in the guide. Some of that’s being made up by North America and you got a population positive mix on US revenue offsetting what is lower margin mix in Europe and Asia. So I just wanted to share that insight as to what’s in the guide as well. That’s helping margin.

Nick Brazis — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, that’s right. It’s a combination of mix transformation and then driving a little bit of benefit below the line. But these are really strong transformation net of investments that we’re driving within the businesses.

Julian Mitchell — Analyst, Barclays

That’s helpful, thank you. And then just to circle back to the Pool business. So is the sort of core assumption that market sell through is pretty flat kind of year on year each quarter and the year in terms of volumes and then the sell in, there’s a bit of pressure, sort of second quarter from channel Partners and then your sell in kind of returns to growth perhaps later in the year. Just trying to understand the sort of sell in, sell through as we go through the year. Understanding it’s a very seasonal business.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, you nailed it. We expect most of the sell in pressure to be Q2 and Q3. We reflect that in this guide and we’re continuing to drive sell through actions. Right now the assumption is flattish and we’re looking to drive higher than that on the volume side. And I think we’re encouraged by what could be there in Q4 next year. But this is industry has been hoping for that volume growth the last couple of years. And I think with all the price activity that’s happening in tariffs and inflation, they’ve generally bought ahead at a pace that we don’t think will continue, which is why we’re addressing that in Q2, Q3 this year.

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrew Krill from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Andrew Krill — Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Hi, thanks. Good morning everyone. Going back to margins, could you give us some directional help on which segments you expect to lead the margin expansion this year? And for Pool in particular, I believe before it was going to be one of the lower expansions of the three. Can you expand margins there this year with the modestly lower sales outlook? Thanks.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, it’s a good question. What we guided at Investor Day is that our long term plan is that Pool will modestly expand margin, whereas our water quality management and flow businesses will have margin expansion that outpaces the aggregate of Pentair. And so when you look for the margin expansion within our businesses, it’s really that water quality management and focus flow business that’s going to drive the additional structural cost improvement that drives the margin expansion. And then the remainder of our business is effectively, you see margin expansion in line with the portfolio.

Andrew Krill — Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay, great. And for productivity, the 21 million in the quarter, if you annualize that you’re tracking pretty nicely above the 70 million for the year for the remaining three quarters. Should we be expecting that about 50 million or so to be linear or is there any reason it’s going to vary by quarter? Can you give us some help there? Thank you.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think a linearization is appropriate and we’re still holding to the 70 million for the year.

Operator

Our next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.

Andy Kaplowitz — Analyst, Citigroup

Good morning everyone.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning,

Andy Kaplowitz — Analyst, Citigroup

Shelly. Thanks for everything. So I think flow revenue was slightly ahead of forecast for Q1. Maybe you could give a little more color on what you’re seeing out of your capex businesses there. Obviously you’re also focused on significant commercial initiatives in that segment. So maybe talk about what you’re seeing in the market versus your own improvements towards growth.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, the flow business, you’re right. Andy did generate a little bit of incremental top line in Q1. We’re expecting full year for flow to be up approximately mid single digits to high single digits, which is in line with where we had guided for the full year. There are green shoots because of our efforts specifically focused on commercial buildings. That’s K12, that’s hospitals, universities and even a little bit of data centers in the pumping technology space. So we do have targeted technology and market investments to continue to grow flow and those are reading out for us. You saw that in Q1 and we feel good about the full year guide.

Andy Kaplowitz — Analyst, Citigroup

Helpful. Maybe give us a little more color about what’s going on in water solutions with, with Ice, Manitowoc Ice and Everpure. I think you did return to growth, very modest growth. I think you talked about North America sort of leading the charge. Are you seeing international stabilize? What are you seeing in that business?

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think that some of the changes we’ve made within Water Solutions, particularly our commercial water solutions business, are reading out nicely. And the targeted efforts as we talked about at Investor Day, as we’re seeing some of the retail shoppers moving from stopping at a drive through to stopping at a convenience store, some of our efforts in those spaces are reading out for us in both the commercial filtration and the commercial ice space. And we expect those to continue. We have ongoing efforts across North America to continue to develop those channel partnerships and to drive sales in that space.

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Graham from Seaport. Please go ahead with your question.

Scott Graham — Analyst, Seaport

Yes. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. And Shelley, you’ve been excellent. Best of luck to you. I wanted to ask about the quarter’s pricing and I just, you know, with your guide for the year for pricing being sort of up low single, the decline there as we move through the quarters is that maybe level set by first quarter having maybe two points of carryover price from last year.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

There is a little bit of carryover and then there’s the so the year over year comp as well. Between Q1 of this year and last year and then pricing we expect again low single digit price take on the year. So you’re right on the Q1.

Scott Graham — Analyst, Seaport

Understood. Thank you.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Keep in mind that the tariff impact came at us and most of the price increases put in in Q2 last year and so that’s why you’re seeing a slightly higher readout in Q1.

Scott Graham — Analyst, Seaport

Understood. The other question was simply on the flow business and you know you kind of gave us a one liner there. In the past you’ve talked about markets specifically with percentages. I know you indicated also some of your initiatives, but maybe if you could delineate specifically how was industrial vers, how is commercial.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Both businesses performed well in the quarter, both from a top line and a margin expansion perspective. And both the commercial businesses and the industrial businesses and the businesses underneath them are expected to continue on that track specifically with the margin expansion initiatives that we’ve already seen read out and continuing to drive that into the rest of 26 and into our 2028 longer term plan horizon.

Operator

Our next question comes from Manit Mahatra from UBS. Please go ahead with your question.

Amit Mehrotra — Analyst, UBS

Thanks. Morning. I guess I just want to start on pool really quickly and just get your color commentary. If you think there’s evidence that price is affecting demand elasticity or even share and within the different categories, whether it’s new pool, remodel, replacement, aftermarket, et cetera, any noteworthy inflections, either positive or negative within each of those sort of subcategories?

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

No, I mean I think pool is playing out generally the way we anticipated it to. Just as a reminder, we have decently high interest rates in the United States right now that didn’t get any better after the Middle east war started. We have higher levels of HELOCs on home remodeling which would affect the remodeling spaces. And we have pressure on consumers in the form of overall cost of living. And if you play that out over the new pool builds, you’ve got the mid market pools and remodels and you’ve got the service side.

What we’re just seeing is people focused on, you know, break and fix repair but not taking the opportunity to upgrade. And those upgrades are a big part of the long term growth drivers. Now we’re going to have to work harder to build programs around it. But prices over the last three, four years is pretty high and ultimately we need it to level off at these levels and then we have to go work and drive the growth actions by region. So in a region you’d look at new pool builds separately than aftermarket and service.

You’re making sure you got the right product availability and lineup and you have the right value proposition and then you have the right marketing sales programs to go penetrate the opportunities. And so that’s the playbook. And I think we’re encouraged by the way that we flattened out here on sell through on volume plus the price. And we think that’s more balanced as we look into 27 and beyond and we’ll get this sell in behind us and we’ll be off to mid single digit growth plus in the future.

Amit Mehrotra — Analyst, UBS

Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. And I just wanted to maybe ask end on a more positive question around green shoots because you mentioned green shoots and we’re all kind of trying to figure out whether in the broader industrial space if green shoots are really green shoots or are they in fact weeds? We’re not really sure. It feels like there’s really more green shoots that are building. So maybe just give us a little bit more color products, regions, why you feel comfortable that they’re actually green shoots and maybe any other additional information on that side.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, and for clarity, when I say green shoots, I mean a result of our pentair efforts and what we’re doing to win commercial building opportunities, municipal opportunities and industrial opportunities, even if there aren’t green shoots in those macro markets, particularly in Europe. And so our teams are doing a good job with targeted selling efforts by region, by city, within those commercial and industrial opportunities for municipals and commercial buildings and by project. So green shoots there are really the result of our team’s efforts to take those opportunities and to drive the growth at healthy margins that are nice mix balance within each of those flow businesses.

Amit Mehrotra — Analyst, UBS

Got it. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jeff Hammond from Keybanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Jeff Hammond — Analyst, Keybanc Capital Markets

Hey, good morning everyone. Morning, Jeff. Just on the. If you look at the 2Q guide like, you know, first half is a little bit lower than kind of the midpoint of your revenue growth. Just talk through the moving pieces, you know, that get you to kind of a better second half to start. Thanks

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I’m going to simplify Q2 just reminding you and everyone that that’s when we started to see the heavier price increases that followed the tariff actions last year. So in our particular guide in Q2 is the anticipation that people jumped ahead of those price increases and bought a little bit more in Q2. And we want to be mindful that our year over year results reflect that. As you head into Q3, Q4, things leveled out and quite frankly we should have some more easier compares across the portfolio across those actions last year.

Jeff Hammond — Analyst, Keybanc Capital Markets

Okay, perfect. And then it seems like the preference is buybacks over deals. But maybe just talk about the pipeline and then where the focus is. I know historically you weren’t doing much in flow, but that was your last deal. Do we start to see more activity in the flow business going forward? Thanks.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I mean, you know we’re actively in the pipeline but it’s hard to say that it’s a robust pipeline at the moment right there. A lot of sponsor based deals are waiting for a better backdrop in climate to come out and the deals that are in the market today we’re looking at, but we have to be thoughtful and careful is what are the returns on those assets and we have to look at them in the tariff environment, the inflation environment, the regional impacts and also across the vertical market landscape. And so we’re active but we want to make sure that we’re always looking at long term value creation and comparing that against our own organic growth opportunities.

Operator

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and 1. To withdraw your questions you may press star and 2. Our next question comes from Joe Giordano from TD Cowan. Please go ahead with your question.

Joseph Giordano

Hey guys, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just curious. When we look at your performance in pool versus your biggest channel partner, it historically was a very tight relationship in terms of their tracking your performance versus their purchases of inventories and it hasn’t been nearly as reliable an indicator over the last year. Plus, just curious how you think we should think about that relationship going forward.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

I think you should use that indicator is how sell through is tracking for us and I would say that we are very mindful of that one. Channel partners sell through. I remind you that there’s other channel partners as well. But I would say that we feel from our equipment performance it was slightly higher than their equipment sell through in the quarter and then you have to think about our sell in and that should be equal to sell through over time. But what we have been clear about is that our sell in outpaced our sell through at the end of last year, probably anticipation of what the 26th pool year would look like.

And also people trying to get ahead of incremental tariff and pricing. And that needs to come back in line, which is why we’re adjusting Q2 and Q3 appropriately.

Joseph Giordano

And then if I think about automation, you know, can you talk about how much this causes like a lock in of equipment? Like if, if I use Pentair automation on top, like as an overarching do I need, how much does that lock you into using Pentair, you know, equipment underneath it. And the counterpoint, like I’ve heard there’s been more kind of ability for other companies kind of automation solutions to sit on top of like an agnostic kind of hardware platform. So just curious how that has changed or evolved and how you think you’re positioned there from like a lock in from automation.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think you got to look at where we’re really well positioned is on a premium pool, multibody large water features, high end aspects. And when you talk about automation at that level, you’ve got a lot of optimization products. You know, you turn on a spa, you want to move valves to change the flow of water, you want to flip on and off on heat pumps versus maybe natural gas heat to optimize your energy capability, you want to optimize energy of pumps. That is what high end automation looks like.

If you’re looking for simple control features on off in the time that you go on off, there are a lot of lower cost automation solutions. And we will also have a low end automation solution in 2027 to take care of that small or simple pad that you’re referring to. I’m optimistic that it could change the automation penetration. But you still need a consumer to say I want automation, you want a service provider that wants to utilize that automation and you ultimately have to create value at a certain price point and the channel to sell it.

And so we have it in our pipeline. It is an opportunity. We talked about the TAM that it will produce an analyst day and we are going to work really, really hard to get that automation of simple pools to get to breakthrough levels.

Operator

And with that we’ll be concluding today’s question and answer session. I’d like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

John L. Stauch — President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you for joining us today. In closing, I’d like to reinforce some key takeaways on slide 13. We have a balanced and resilient water portfolio that has delivered superior value over the last several years. We have a clear strategy, proven operating model and an energized leadership team. We expect to accelerate long term growth through innovation and elite customer experiences. We expect our focused water strategy and strong execution to continue to strengthen our foundation and drive operational efficiency supporting long term growth, profitability and shareholder value.

Finally, we believe that we are well positioned to participate in growth opportunities supported by long term water related trends consistent with our focused strategy. Thank you everyone and have a great day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we’ll conclude today’s conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.