Middleby

Phase A — Understand the business

Lens 1 · Company Overview

Middleby designs, manufactures and services equipment that cooks, chills, and packages food — sold to two end-markets after the 2026 reshaping:

• Commercial Foodservice Equipment Group — ovens (conveyor, combi, convection, deck, high-speed), fryers, ranges, charbroilers, refrigeration, ice machines, frozen-dessert/soft-serve, beverage dispensing, plus IoT controllers. Sold to QSR/fast-casual/full-service restaurants, ghost kitchens, c-stores, supermarkets, hotels, institutions. Marquee brands: TurboChef (high-speed ovens), Taylor (soft-serve / the McDonald's-ice-cream-machine brand), Pitco, Blodgett, Southbend, Follett, U-Line Commercial, Synesso, Concordia (beverage), Powerhouse Dynamics / L2F / Blue Sparq (IoT/automation). FY2025 net sales $2,351.0M, ~73% of continuing revenue.
• Food Processing Equipment Group — industrial protein (bacon, sausage, poultry, alt-protein, pet food) and bakery/snack lines: ovens, fryers, thermal-processing, slicers, formers, packaging, AGVs, food-safety/inspection. Brands: Alkar, Cozzini, Spooner Vicars, Stewart Systems, MP Equipment, JC Ford, Frigomeccanica, Oka. FY2025 net sales $850.2M, ~27%. Becomes Midera post-spin.

Business model. A serial acquirer of niche-leading brands run on a lean shared-services model (only ~105 corporate employees for an 8,826-person company ). Margin is manufactured by buying founder-led brands and applying the "Middleby operating system" (procurement, footprint consolidation, pricing). Revenue is largely transactional/point-of-sale in Commercial Foodservice (recognized on shipment) and percentage-of-completion over 12–36 months for big Food Processing line projects. No take-or-pay; not subscription. The recurring-ish layer is replacement demand + after-sale parts/service (100+ parts distributors, 3,000 certified technicians).

Customers / suppliers / competitors. End customers span multinational chains (incl. large QSR) bought through buying-group dealers, plus direct national-account relationships. Inputs are commodity (stainless steel, electrical components, hardware) from many suppliers, some sole-source but substitutable. Competitors below (Lens 3).

customers.csv / financials.csv / segments.csv on the shelf are empty templates — every number here is read directly from the filings, not the CSVs.

Lens 2 · Supply Chain

Upstream → Middleby → end customer, named where the filings name them:

• Inputs: stainless steel, electrical/electronic components and controls, motors, refrigeration compressors, fabricated metal. "Majority are standard commodity-type materials… available in adequate quantities from numerous suppliers. Some component parts are obtained from sole sources… management believes it can substitute". Chokepoint flagged by management: electronic controls and shipping/logistics — Q1 2026 call cited "~1% margin headwind per segment" from shipping + electronic-controls cost pressure. Tariffs raised input costs on certain raw materials/components.
• Middleby: 38 U.S. + 34 international manufacturing facilities (Commercial Foodservice: 25 domestic / 18 intl; Food Processing: 13 domestic / 16 intl). In-house metal fabrication is the core competence; CAD/CAM + numerically-controlled punching. Internal vertical integration of fabrication is itself the supply-chain moat against component shortages.
• Distribution: Commercial Foodservice → non-exclusive U.S. dealer network + manufacturers' reps + buying groups; direct to large chains with their own procurement; Middleby Innovation Kitchens (MIK) demo/training centers in Dallas, Germany, Spain. Food Processing → direct consultative sales force (food scientists), Protein/Bakery Innovation Centers in Chicago, Dallas, India, Italy.
• End customers: restaurant chains, c-stores/supermarkets, hotels/institutions (CFS); the largest global food processors — protein, bakery, snack, pet-food (FP).

Single-source dependency: no disclosed single-supplier concentration that is unsubstitutable; the real fragility is macro/logistics + tariffs, not a named vendor. Geographic concentration: most long-lived assets in U.S./Canada + Europe; meaningful EMEA exposure (Aga, Frigomeccanica, Oka, Spooner Vicars).

Lens 3 · Competitive Advantages (moats)

The moat is brand-portfolio breadth + the dealer relationship, not technology. Three real, durable edges:

1. Portfolio breadth → dealer share-of-wallet. The Q1 inflection was explicitly driven by dealers now packaging "six to eight Middleby brands per project vs three or four previously". When a chain renovates a kitchen, Middleby can supply the oven and the fryer and the ice and the beverage and the controller. That cross-sell is a structural switching cost for the dealer channel that single-line rivals (Rational = combi only; Hoshizaki = refrigeration) cannot match.
2. Installed base + after-sale lock-in. 3,000 certified technicians, 100+ parts distributors, branded consumables/parts. Replacement and parts revenue is stickier than new-equipment cycles.
3. Process/scale moat in M&A. Two decades of bolt-on integration is a repeatable capability — buy a founder brand at ~8–10x, take out cost, cross-sell into the dealer base. This is a capital-allocation moat more than a product moat.

Bargaining power. Strong over fragmented suppliers (commodity inputs, many sources). Mixed over customers — large multinational QSR chains have procurement power and can squeeze on price; the dealer buying groups also negotiate terms. Pricing power is real but capped (Q3 2026 increases are "low single-digit" ).

Where the moat is thin: brand equity does not confer pricing power like Rational's combi-oven niche (90%+ gross margins ) — Middleby's continuing-ops gross margin is ~39%. It is a good industrial, not a franchise. The bear (Lens 13) leans here.

positioning.md / bottlenecks.md on the shelf point to the generic robotics KB wiki, which is not Middleby-specific; I did not lean on them because Middleby is a foodservice-equipment roll-up, not a robotics name — the filings are the better source.

Lens 4 · Segments

All and. Residential is gone (discontinued; all periods recast).

FY2025 (continuing operations) — net sales / segment adj. EBITDA / margin:

Trend read:

• Commercial Foodservice has been shrinking through the restaurant-capex downturn: $2,485M (2023) → $2,380M (2024) → $2,351M (2025), with EBITDA margin sliding 691→654→627 ($M). 2026 is the inflection: Q1 +9.4% reported / +8.1% organic. This is the swing factor for the whole RemainCo.
• Food Processing is the grower: $757M→$770M→$850M, with Q1 2026 at +33.7% reported / +25.0% organic and backlog up to $416M from $409.9M at year-end (vs $257.6M a year earlier). Fifth consecutive quarter of book-to-bill >1.0. This is the asset being spun — and it is being spun into its best momentum.
• Geography (Q1 2026): US/Canada $563.3M, EMEA $169.5M (FP-heavy), LatAm $49.5M, Asia $57.6M. International is the FP growth engine (EMEA + LatAm protein/bakery; first Kenya bakery orders).

Why it matters: post-spin Middleby = a ~$2.4B-revenue, ~26%-EBITDA Commercial Foodservice pure-play in cyclical recovery; Midera = a ~$850M-revenue, ~20%-EBITDA Food Processing growth pure-play with M&A runway at 1.25x net leverage.

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Phase B — Measure performance

Lens 5 · Earnings Result (Q1 FY2026, the latest print)

The headline is a tale of two numbers. Continuing operations were strong; GAAP net was a loss because of the Residential exit.

• Net sales $839.9M, +15.0% YoY ($730.6M). Decomposition: +11.9% organic, +2.0% FX, +1.0% acquisitions. Beat consensus $777.7M by ~8%.
• Gross margin 38.5%, down 150bp from 40.0% — "primarily impacted by tariffs, input cost inflation and product mix". CFS GM 40.0% (−130bp); FP GM 34.5% (−180bp).
• Income from continuing operations $133.4M (15.9% margin) vs $129.5M (17.8%) — dollars up, margin down on the GM compression + higher SG&A (incl. $6.5M strategic/transaction costs).
• Net earnings from continuing ops $85.3M, GAAP diluted EPS (continuing) $1.81 (vs $1.56) — the per-share jump is buyback-driven (diluted share count 47.2M vs 54.6M).
• Adjusted EPS $2.16 vs $1.94 consensus (+11.3% beat) — the metric the Street trades; +15% YoY, management's "transformation drives 15% EPS growth" framing.
• Discontinued ops: $(135.4)M loss, including a $94.9M pre-tax loss on disposition of Residential (incl. $50.8M remeasurement of the retained 49% stake) → GAAP net loss $(50.1)M / $(1.06)/sh.
• Guidance RAISED: FY2026 revenue $3.36–3.44B (+6% mid), adj EBITDA $758–790M (+7%).
• Market reaction: +13.8% on the print (to ~$162) — the beat + raise + spin clarity all landed at once.

Balance-sheet flags (Q1): cash $177.1M; total debt $1,874.0M (down from $2,173.0M after applying ~$565M Residential proceeds) at avg rate 4.73%. Inventory $728.4M (up $35.8M — management blames inflationary cost, a yellow flag for working capital). Receivables $608.0M (up with sales). Goodwill+intangibles $2,839.0M vs equity $2,374.9M — balance sheet is more intangibles than equity (the roll-up signature). New: equity-method investment $155.3M (49% Composition Brands) + note receivable $84.2M.

Lens 6 · Earnings Calls (sentiment trend)

No transcripts on the shelf (transcripts/ empty); I read the Q1 2026 call live. Tone profile:

• Confident on: competitive positioning, dealer share gains, Food Processing momentum ("best first quarter ever — record results across key top-line metrics," Mark Salman), and the spin ("beginning of a new and exciting chapter," FitzGerald). Repeated phrases: "pure-play," "growth platform," "significant capacity," "well positioned."
• Cautious on: macro consumer health ("industry conditions remain challenging," wallets pressured in March–April), and near-term margin (tariffs "remained a headwind on a percentage-margin basis… through Q2"; price increases not until Q3).
• What management is focused on: executing the July 6 spin cleanly; CFS dealer-alignment + beverage platform wins (positioned for 2027–2028 chain rollouts); FP international expansion + M&A post-spin; returning the "vast majority" of FCF via buyback.
• Shift over time (vs the 2025 cadence I could see): the story has flipped from defensive (restaurant-capex downturn, Residential drag, activist pressure) to offensive (organic inflection + the breakup-as-catalyst). The single biggest tonal change is CFS moving from "deferrals/soft" to "replacement activity is improving… inflection in demand and higher volumes."

Lens 7 · Comps

Peer set built from the 10-K's own named competitors. The index has no robotics peers and Middleby has no true single comp — it straddles commercial-foodservice equipment (Rational, Hoshizaki, ITW/Hobart, Ali Group-private, Welbilt-now-Ali) and diversified food-processing/industrials (GEA, JBT Marel, Dover, Duravant-private, ProMach-private). Multiples are `` with date or n/a.

5-yr avg ROE: n/a per name (didn't want to fabricate a 5-yr series). Middleby's own ROIC ~10.5% TTM vs WACC ~7.9% — positive spread but modest.

Read: MIDD at ~16x forward earnings is the cheapest of the quality cohort (ITW 21.5x, Rational 27x, Dover 27x, GEA 26x). That discount is the thesis — the conglomerate/complexity discount the breakup is designed to collapse. The risk: post-spin, you own two smaller, more cyclical pure-plays that may not each re-rate to ITW/Rational multiples, and the cheapness re-rates away if the SOTP works exactly as the market already expects at a 52-week-high price.

Lens 8 · Stock-Price Catalysts (what moves MIDD)

Pattern over the cycle:

• 2021 — lost the Welbilt bid to Ali Group. Middleby's $4.3B all-stock offer was topped by Ali Group's $24/sh all-cash ($4.8B EV); Middleby took a $110M break fee. Consequence that still matters: Ali Group is now a far larger CFS competitor because Middleby didn't win the consolidation.
• 2022–2024 — multiple compression on restaurant-capex downturn + Residential (Viking/Aga) housing weakness; the stock de-rated and underperformed.
• Feb 24–25, 2025 — the catalyst cluster: Ed Garden / Garden Investment Management cooperation agreement (board seat) + announcement of the Food Processing spin-off. This is the inflection from "cheap melting roll-up" to "self-help breakup story."
• Q3 2025 — $709.1M Residential impairment and the Dec 4, 2025 deal to sell 51% of Residential at an $885M valuation.
• 2026 — the re-rate: Q1 beat-and-raise (+13.8% on the day) + spin clarity drove the stock to a 52-week high $176.44 (now $173.81).

What the market actually reacts to: (1) portfolio/structural actions (M&A, spin, activist) > (2) organic-growth inflection points (the CFS turn) > (3) earnings beats. Tariffs/margin are a governor on the multiple, not a catalyst by themselves.

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Phase C — Judge people & books

Lens 9 · Management

• CEO — Timothy FitzGerald. ~25 years at Middleby; CFO 2003–2019, CEO since 2019 (succeeded Selim Bassoul). Track record: ran the company through the post-COVID restaurant-capex downturn and is now executing the largest strategic reshaping in its history. He is the architect-of-record of the breakup (under activist pressure). A finance-CEO, capital-allocation-led operator — fits a roll-up in harvest/optimization mode.
• CFO — Bryan E. Mittelman (signed both filings).
• Midera (Food Processing spin) team: Mark Salman CEO, COO Mark Bowie, CSO Matt Fuchsen, CFO Amy Campbell — a credible, named, in-place team (de-risks the spin's execution).
• Capital-allocation history: the defining trait. (1) Decades of bolt-on M&A — 7 acquisitions in the last two years for $153.6M aggregate (Emery Thompson, GBT, Maxmac, JC Ford, Gorreri, Frigomeccanica, Oka); (2) aggressive buyback — ~9% share reduction in 2025, ~7% YTD 2026, guiding 6–8%/yr, "vast majority of FCF"; treasury stock went from $940.7M to $1,735.3M in FY2025 to $2,110.1M by Q1 2026; (3) paid off the $744.5M convertible at maturity in 2025. No dividend. ROIC ~10.5% > WACC ~7.9% — value-additive but not elite; the goodwill base from the roll-up weighs on returns.
• Skin in the game / insider ownership: insider-transactions.csv not on shelf; specific % n/a. Note: Ed Garden / Garden Investment Management holds 2,635,866 shares (~5.5%) and a board seat — an aligned, activist owner whose presence is the governance upgrade.
• Red flags (governance): the activist's arrival in Feb 2025 implies the board was previously seen as under-delivering on the conglomerate structure — a mild negative on prior capital allocation (over-diversification into Residential/Viking, which then required a $709M impairment and a fire-sale-ish exit). Comp plan is tied to Adjusted EPS growth, ROIC, and TSR — reasonable. Founder-vs-professional: professional manager running a founder-built (Bassoul-era) portfolio — appropriate for the current harvest/breakup stage.

Lens 10 · Forensic Red Flags

Acting forensic across the three statements [all `` unless noted]:

• Discontinued-ops / impairment optics. The cleanest "tell": the FY2025 GAAP net loss of $(277.7)M is entirely a Residential artifact — $709.1M of impairments in Q3 2025 ($572.6M goodwill + $131.8M trademarks + $3.5M tech), then a further $94.9M loss-on-disposition in Q1 2026. This is a late mark — Residential goodwill/brands (Viking, Aga) were carried at inflated values for years and only written down when a sale forced the issue. Quality-of-prior-earnings flag, but it's now out of the company (sold) and disclosed transparently.
• Adjusted EBITDA vs GAAP. Management runs the company on segment "Adjusted EBITDA" that excludes D&A, restructuring, impairments, stock comp, and "other non-recurring items". SBC jumped to $10.1M in Q1 2026 from $2.3M a year earlier (FY2025 SBC was only $13.5M, down from $31.9M FY2024 — lumpy, partly market-based vesting). Watch SBC normalization post-spin. Non-GAAP "Adjusted EPS $2.16" vs GAAP continuing $1.81 is a ~19% gap — material but standard for the peer group.
• Goodwill/intangibles concentration. ~28% of assets goodwill + ~13% indefinite-life intangibles — and the company just demonstrated it will impair when a unit underperforms. Remaining CFS/FP goodwill ($1,295M / $499M) looks better-supported (those units are growing), but it is the structural risk.
• Cash flow vs earnings. FY2025 operating cash flow (continuing) $564.6M vs net earnings (continuing) $367.3M — cash-backed, healthy (D&A + working-capital release). FCF (continuing) ~$493.9M. No divergence red flag. Q1 2026 OCF (continuing) was lighter at $87.8M vs $137.3M (inventory build $40.6M + tax timing) — worth monitoring but seasonal.
• Receivables/inventory vs revenue. Inventory +$35.8M QoQ on +15% sales — management attributes to inflation, not demand softness; not yet alarming but the single working-capital item to watch. Allowance for credit losses $25.2M, stable.
• Leases / pensions / related parties. UK Aga Rangemaster pension (the "Retained Plan," frozen) stays with continuing ops — a legacy DB obligation (non-U.S. plan assets ~$1.0B, benefit obligation ~$894M, modestly overfunded). Interest-rate swaps hedge ~$315M notional. Related-party / unusual: the Residential deal leaves Middleby with a $135M promissory note (fair-valued at $84.2M) and a 49% equity-method stake in Composition Brands accounted for via HLBV with a one-quarter reporting lag and no income recognized yet — a future opacity point (you won't see the JV's economics cleanly).

Regulatory findings (read regulatory/regulatory-findings.md ):

• SEC Litigation Releases: none naming Middleby (2021-06-29 → 2026-06-29).
• AAERs: none.
• 10-K Item 3 (Legal Proceedings): ordinary-course only — "From time to time, the company is subject to proceedings, lawsuits and other claims… The company does not believe that any such matter will have a material adverse effect"; no material litigation disclosed.
• Non-SEC (FTC/DOJ/FDA) web sweep: no material enforcement actions surfaced.
• Auditor: Ernst & Young; ICFR concluded effective as of Jan 3, 2026; no changes/disagreements (Item 9). 2025 acquisitions (Frigomeccanica, Oka) excluded from first-year ICFR scope per SEC guidance — routine.
• Verdict: No material regulatory or legal findings — verified via SEC EDGAR EFTS (LR, AAER), web search, and 10-K Item 3 as of 2026-06-29. The accounting risk is impairment-driven earnings volatility, not fraud.

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Phase D — Project & stress-test

Lens 11 · Forward Projection

Critical caveat: Middleby changes shape on July 6, 2026 when Midera (Food Processing) spins out. A clean MIDD EPS line for FY2026/27/28 is therefore discontinuous — the figures below are built on continuing-operations as currently reported (incl. Food Processing through the spin), because the company's own raised FY2026 guidance is on that basis. Post-spin, MIDD-standalone (Commercial Foodservice + 49% stub) will be re-based by management; treat FY2027+ as scenario, not forecast.

Anchor: FY2026 guidance — revenue $3.36–3.44B, adj EBITDA $758–790M; Q1 adj EPS $2.16. FY2025 GAAP continuing diluted EPS $7.04. Share count compounding down 6–8%/yr via buyback.

These are continuing-entity figures; the SOTP (RemainCo CFS ~26% EBITDA pure-play + Midera ~20% growth pure-play + ~$565M cash + 49% JV stub + $135M note) is the real value framework post-spin, but I will not fabricate standalone per-share targets the company hasn't yet provided — n/a for MIDD-standalone EPS.

Sanity vs Street: avg analyst PT $189.71 (Moderate Buy); JPMorgan $185 (Neutral), Barclays $190 (OW), Baird $205. At $173.81 the Street sees ~9% upside to consensus PT, ~18% to Baird.

Brier forecast: NOT logged (per --watchlist rules — skip forecast.ts create in the sweep; only log a forecast on genuine committed conviction, which is a human-gated /thesis decision given the spin discontinuity).

Lens 12 · Bull vs Bear

Bull case. Middleby is a self-help story with a real demand tailwind underneath. (1) The breakup unlocks a conglomerate discount — three focused entities (CFS pure-play at 26% EBITDA, Midera growth pure-play, monetized Residential) each deserve a cleaner multiple than the muddled whole that trades at ~16x vs ITW 21.5x / Rational 27x. (2) Commercial Foodservice is inflecting after a multi-year capex downturn — +8.1% organic in Q1, dealer share gains (6–8 brands/project), and a 2027–2028 chain-beverage rollout pipeline still ahead. (3) Food Processing is firing — best Q1 ever, +25% organic, record $416M backlog, 5 straight quarters book-to-bill >1.0, and post-spin M&A capacity at 1.25x leverage. (4) Capital-allocation flywheel — 7% annual share shrink on strong FCF ($494M continuing) compounds EPS even at modest revenue growth. (5) Activist alignment — Ed Garden on the board is a structural governance upgrade and a continued catalyst engine. Contrarian point the market under-weights: the quality of the CFS recovery — replacement demand deferred for 3 years is now un-deferring into a portfolio that can capture more $/kitchen than ever, which could surprise to the upside in 2027–2028.

Bear case. You are buying the breakup after it has been announced, telegraphed, and re-rated — at the 52-week high, with the cheapness that was the thesis about to disappear. Three things that could permanently impair or de-rate: (1) Margin structure is genuinely worse — GM fell 150bp to 38.5% on tariffs + input inflation + mix, and management can only push "low single-digit" price; if tariffs persist (Section 232/122 exposure "relatively the same" gross), the 26%-CFS-EBITDA target slips and the whole SOTP math weakens. (2) CFS is cyclical and consumer-levered — "industry conditions remain challenging," wallets pressured in Mar–Apr; if the restaurant-capex recovery is a head-fake (rates stay high, traffic softens), the organic inflection reverses and you own a low-growth industrial at a premium-to-recent multiple. (3) The roll-up's accounting just bit — a $709M Residential impairment shows goodwill (28% of assets) is not bedrock; another underperforming unit could force the same. (4) Debt + the 2028 wall — $1.77B of term debt matures in 2028 at 4.73% into an uncertain rate path; refinancing risk + restrictive covenants (no dividend allowed, limits on M&A) cap flexibility. Pre-mortem (18 months out, thesis broke): the spin completed, both stubs failed to re-rate (CFS stuck at ~14x as the consumer rolled over, Midera de-rated on a freight/protein-capex air-pocket), tariffs stuck GM at 38%, and the buyback — the only EPS support — slowed as the share price stayed high. The stock round-trips to the $140s.

Are multiples too high? At ~16x forward, no, on the current entity — it's the cheap one. The risk is post-spin: two smaller, more volatile pure-plays at a combined premium if the market has already paid for a perfect SOTP at the 52-week high.

Lens 13 · Devil's Advocate (short-seller)

Dismantling the bull:

• What structurally breaks the model? Commercial Foodservice is discretionary capex for restaurants — the single most cyclical, consumer-traffic-sensitive end market in industrials. The "inflection" is one quarter off a low base; a single bad consumer print (which management already flagged for Mar–Apr) un-defers the deferral. The bull is extrapolating a v-shape from a w.
• Where is revenue concentrated / what shifts it? Large multinational QSR chains hold procurement power; a pause in one or two chains' renovation cycles swings CFS. Food Processing revenue is lumpy project-based (percentage-of-completion, 12–36 months) — the record $416M backlog is a high-water mark that mean-reverts; "best Q1 ever" is precisely when to fade FP momentum, and it's being spun out at the top.
• Why is the moat weaker than bulls think? Brand breadth is real but it is not pricing power — 38–40% gross margins vs Rational's 90%+. Middleby competes on price/lead-time/service against larger, better-resourced rivals (ITW/Hobart, Ali Group post-Welbilt, Midea, Haier) in a "highly competitive and fragmented" market by its own admission. Most dangerous competitor bulls underrate: Ali Group — private, patient, and now far larger after Middleby lost Welbilt to them in 2021.
• Worst capital-allocation moves: over-diversifying into Residential (Viking/Aga) at peak housing, then eating a $709M impairment and exiting at a loss-on-disposition — the activist had to arrive to force the cleanup. The buyback is being funded into a rising share price ($153 avg Q1, $142 early Q2, now $174) — accretive only if the stock isn't already expensive.
• What must hold for today's price? That the CFS recovery is durable and both post-spin entities re-rate and tariffs ease and the 2028 debt refis cleanly. That's a lot of "ands" at a 52-week high.
• Growth disappoints 20–30%: if organic decelerates from ~12% to low-single-digit and GM holds at 38%, FY2027 EPS slips toward the ~$8.10 bear and the stock de-rates from 16x toward 12–13x → $100–105 zone. The single scenario that permanently impairs: a deep restaurant-capex recession that turns the CFS "recovery" into a fresh multi-year decline while the company carries $1.9B of debt.

Lens 14 · Management Questions (ordered by information value)

1. Post-spin, what is the standalone Commercial Foodservice revenue, adjusted-EBITDA-margin, and capital-allocation framework — and what gives you confidence in the 26% segment EBITDA target given GM just fell 150bp on tariffs?
2. The Q1 organic inflection (+8.1% CFS) — how much is durable replacement demand vs dealer-channel share-shift vs restocking, and what would make it reverse?
3. On tariffs: quantify the gross annualized exposure, the H2 pricing offset, and the steady-state CFS/FP gross-margin you expect once pricing fully laps — is 40% GM still the right anchor?
4. The $1.77B 2028 debt maturity — what is the refi plan, target leverage, and how do covenants (dividend prohibition, M&A limits) constrain you between now and then?
5. Walk through the economics of the 49% Composition Brands stake + $135M note — when do we see JV earnings (given the one-quarter HLBV lag and zero income recognized so far), and what is your exit path on the retained stake?
6. Midera (Food Processing) is spun at a record backlog ($416M) — how cyclical is that backlog, what is the normalized book-to-bill, and how should investors think about FP's through-cycle margin floor?
7. Buyback is "the vast majority of FCF" at 6–8%/yr — at what share price does repurchase stop being the best use of capital relative to bolt-on M&A or debt paydown?
8. What is your insider ownership today, and how is the post-spin comp plan structured to align FitzGerald and the RemainCo team specifically with CFS value creation (not the legacy conglomerate)?
9. The automation/IoT narrative (Powerhouse Dynamics, L2F, MIK, connected controllers) — what is its actual revenue contribution today, and is it a margin/moat driver or a marketing layer?
10. Beverage is cited as the 2027–2028 CFS growth engine — name the signed chain platforms and the revenue ramp you expect as those roll out.
11. After the $709M Residential impairment, how should investors gain confidence in the carrying value of the remaining $1.79B goodwill + $0.84B indefinite-life intangibles in CFS/FP?
12. What is the Ali Group competitive dynamic post-Welbilt — where are you gaining/losing share against the consolidated #2, and on what basis (price, breadth, service)?
13. Inventory rose $35.8M in Q1 "on inflation" — how much is cost vs units, and what is the working-capital normalization path?
14. What further portfolio actions does the board (with Ed Garden) contemplate after the spin — additional divestitures within CFS, or is the breakup complete?
15. SBC jumped to $10.1M in Q1 from $2.3M — what is the normalized post-spin SBC run-rate across the two companies, and how dilutive is it to the buyback math?

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