Good morning, everyone. I'm Matt Roache, Vice President of Investor Relations, and it's a pleasure to welcome you to Crane NXT's 2026 Investor Day. Before we get started, just a few housekeeping items. First and foremost, safety is our top priority. There are no planned fire drills today, so if you do hear an alarm, please treat it as a real event and follow the instructions from the venue staff. The exits are located the way you entered, as well as to my left. Restrooms are just outside the event space in the common area. Please take a moment to silence your mobile devices and computers. Today's presentations are being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website following the event. As shown on this slide, the presentations contain forward-looking statements and references to certain non-GAAP financial measures.
Please review the legal notice, as well as our Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings for important risk factors. Reconciliations of all non-GAAP measures to their comparable GAAP measures can be found in the presentation appendix and in our financial filings. After today's event, you'll receive a short survey by email. We value your feedback as it helps us assess the effectiveness of today's program and understand whether we covered the areas you were hoping to hear about. Moving to the agenda. We'll begin with remarks from our President and CEO, Aaron W. Saak, who'll provide a high-level look at Crane NXT and the compelling reasons why the company is positioned to accelerate growth. You'll hear from Sam Keayes, who leads our Security and Authentication Technologies segment, and from Michael Mahan, President of CPI. We will have the first of two Q&A sessions.
After a short break, Aaron will talk about how we're accelerating growth with strategic M&A, and then Christina Cristiano, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss our financial performance, our capital allocation priorities, and our outlook. Following Christina's presentation, we'll have our second Q&A session, and Aaron will wrap up the presentation portion of today's event with some closing remarks. After we wrap up, we invite you to join us just down the hall for our innovation showcase and lunch. With that, let's get things started with a short video, and then Aaron will take the stage for his opening remarks.
Trust. It's the foundation of confidence in global commerce. It's trust that enables the industries that heal, inspire, serve, and secure our world.
Hi, my name is Christopher Arena. I'm the Head of On-Court and Brand Partnerships with the National Basketball Association. OPSEC, now Crane Authentication, has been our partner for over 30 years in helping us protect our brands. Crane Authentication is a best-in-class leader in the industry. Our fans expect that the products that they buy are officially licensed. We can't do that without the help of Crane Authentication.
At Crane NXT, we ensure that people can trust what they buy and use every day. Our differentiated technologies validate authenticity and protect supply chains across the globe for governments and businesses.
Hello, my name is Bob Stewart. I'm the Global Brand Protection Manager for General Motors and the Automotive Anti-Counterfeiting Council President. General Motors is a global manufacturer with a lot of iconic brands. We rely on world-class suppliers like Crane NXT to provide us solutions to keep our customers safe. Primarily, we're using technologies on our labeling to be able to tell that it's our genuine product, so that anybody within the supply chain can identify that the product is genuinely from us.
Every day, over 5,000 Crane NXT associates from across the world work together to provide innovative, market-leading solutions that safeguard the authenticity of every product, every transaction, and every promise. We ensure trust. We are Crane NXT. We give people confidence every day in moments that matter.
Well, good morning. Good morning, welcome to our Investor Day. Again, I sincerely appreciate everyone who's here with us in person and with us online this morning. Thank you for taking your time. Well, it's hard to believe, but in a few weeks, we will be celebrating the third anniversary of Crane NXT as a public company. Over that time, we've been very intentional in building the company into a focused, technology-led leader with positions in resilient and growing end markets, while also maintaining our attractive margins and excellent free cash flow generation. In 2026, we're entering the next phase of the company's evolution from a position of strength, with a clear strategy, a strong balance sheet, disciplined capital allocation, and a high-performing team that executes with consistency and with purpose.
Today is focused on providing you all details on our strategic vision and financial targets going forward, clearly articulating what we do, why we win, and how that translates into durable value creation for our investors. You'll hear more about how we continue to invest in differentiated technology, extend our market leadership positions, and use the Crane Business System to expand margins and deliver strong free cash flow. For those reasons, and for those here in person, you'll also get to see our technology up close at our innovation showcase after the presentations.
I'm confident at the conclusion of today, you will see why I'm incredibly optimistic about where we're positioned to accelerate growth and the opportunity for significant value creation over the coming years. Our value creation framework is focused on three areas. First, accelerating organic growth by providing solutions to meet high-value customer needs through our differentiated authentication and traceability technologies. Second, on building on our leadership positions as we continue to expand our portfolio, both in our core and in near adjacent markets, while leveraging our existing customer relationships, scale advantages, and technology breadth. Third, driving operational excellence through the deployment of the Crane Business System, or CBS, as we call it, to drive margin expansion and strong free cash flow. These priorities are at the core of our strategy as we move into the next phase of growth of Crane NXT.
I think it's helpful to remember where we've come from in building this company over the past several years. Prior to our separation from Crane Company, we established leadership positions in advanced security technology for currency and detection equipment to authenticate payment transactions. In April of 2023, we launched Crane NXT. Over the past three years, we've been focused on expanding our position in resilient, higher growth end markets, leveraging our capabilities and technologies that secure, detect, and authenticate products. Over this time, we've grown revenue to approximately $1.7 billion and increased our addressable market size to $10 billion. In 2026, we start this next chapter in the evolution of the company, positioned to accelerate growth as we create a scaled global leader in authentication and traceability technologies.
Following the close of the Antares Vision acquisition, our addressable market expands to $13 billion, and we expect revenue of approximately $1.9 billion in 2026. We're continuing to build a more resilient, high-quality company, positioned in growing markets and providing solutions to our customers and their consumers that ensure trust. It's really trust that's at the core of our purpose, giving people confidence every day in moments that matter. Our technology gives people confidence that the pharmaceuticals they take are safe, the products they buy are genuine, their identity is protected, the currency they use is authentic, and the transactions they make using it are valid and secure. We take this purpose very seriously, and I believe it's a clear differentiator with our customers.
Our purpose is built on the foundation of a company that goes back over 150 years, starting with paper mills here in the United States and in Sweden. Today, Crane NXT operates at global scale with over 5,000 associates, approximately 16,000 customers, and roughly 1,300 patents protecting our differentiated technology. In 2025, we had sales of approximately $1.7 billion, with adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 24% and 94% free cash flow conversion. We have leadership positions in all of the markets we serve, spanning currency, brand and government authentication, payment hardware and services, and vending. We've also have a very diversified geographic mix, led by North America and with a growing presence in higher growth emerging markets.
This combination of market leadership through our technology, global scale, and strong cash generation provides an excellent position for our continued growth. We've successfully expanded the company over the past 3 years to build on our core positions and create a more integrated and differentiated portfolio. With the acquisition of Antares Vision, we take another important step in being able to provide a full suite of authentication and traceability technologies, including proprietary security features for physical products, the ability to track and trace those products through the supply chain, detection and inspection equipment to authenticate products and ensure their quality, a field service organization for commissioning the maintenance of that equipment, and unique capabilities to bring these solutions to governments all over the world. These technology and operational capabilities are a key differentiator, allowing us to truly be a trusted partner to our customers and to their consumers.
Upon completion of the Antares Vision acquisition, the business will become part of a new segment called Detection and Traceability Technologies, or DTT. We see numerous operational synergies with our CPI business, with both businesses focused on equipment manufacturing, advanced detection system design, and field services. This segment is highly complementary to our existing Security and Authentication Technologies segment. In short, DTT ensures the quality, authenticity, and traceability of products across the supply chain, while SAT prevents the counterfeiting of products, identities, and other types of counterfeiting on products using our proprietary security features and software. As we look ahead, our portfolio benefits from durable market trends, including the need to protect brands and products from and identities from increased and more sophisticated counterfeiting.
Both governments and businesses wanting digitized and transparent supply chains to ensure the safety and authenticity of their products, and the continued growth of populations and increased GDP in emerging economies. In total, these trends provide underlying market tailwinds of mid to high single-digit growth, and we continue to align our organic and inorganic investments to build on our leadership positions that benefit from these secular trends. Let's see. There we go. As we continue to expand the company, a key to delivering on our value creation priorities is driving operational excellence through the deployment of the Crane Business System. Now, CBS is not new to the company since our launch, and it's been embedded in our culture for well over a decade. It's how we work every day with more than 140 Kaizen events annually.
At its core, the purpose of CBS is to accelerate profitable growth to the benefit of our associates, our customers, our communities, and of course, our shareholders, and you see this represented at the center of the diagram on the left. We achieve this result through the use of specific tools that ensure we focus on markets where we can play and win. We develop new products and technologies that satisfy high-value customer needs, and we improve the safety, quality, delivery, and cost of our operations every day. At the top of this diagram is a very critical element to CBS, the training of our team and deploying them to tackle our biggest opportunities to accelerate profitable growth. I'm very proud that we have over 200 CBS tool champions across the company, a number that's grown by about 10% each year.
These are experts in the application of the CBS toolkit and often travel to different sites and businesses to apply their expertise. We also invest in more than 80,000 hours of training for our team members each year in the CBS tools. Additionally, CBS is critical to achieving the financial returns of our acquisitions, and we deploy key talent and train our new team members on CBS to achieve our synergies. When all of these elements, as shown in this diagram, move together, we create momentum and build energy to accelerate profitable growth, and that's why we call this image our CBS flywheel. As it spins faster, we generate more energy and more impact from CBS. Now, at the bottom of this flywheel is a set of actions that say, "Live our values," and I'm very proud of the core values that we have here in Crane NXT.
People matter, do the right thing, trusted partner, innovate for growth, and always improving. They shape our decisions, they help us strengthen our partnerships with customers, ensures we give back to our communities, like you see here in the picture, and align our teams around collaborating for success. Oh! As we look ahead to the next 3 years, today, we're setting clear goals for what success looks like, aligned to our value creation priorities. First, our goal is to accelerate organic growth, sustainably growing at mid-single digits over the period. Second, we intend to build on our core businesses through investments to accelerate organic growth and continued M&A, both as bolt-ons and expansion into near adjacencies. From these actions, we expect to grow the company to approximately $2.5 billion in sales while keeping net leverage below 3.
Third, we will continue to focus on driving operational excellence, maintaining our adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-twenties, and driving approximately 100% free cash flow conversion. These goals reflect confidence in our strategy and in our teams, they are reinforced by our proven track record over these past three years. Now I'd like to turn the presentation over to Sam Keayes, our Senior Vice President and leader of our Security and Authentication Technologies segment, to discuss the growth opportunities that we have in our currency business and in authentication. Sam?
G ood morning, once again. Thank you again for those of you who managed to struggle through the weather to join us here in person, and a very warm welcome also to those of you joining us online. We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you taking the time to join us this morning. My name is Aaron Gissetti Sam Keayes. I'm the leader of the Security and Authentication Technologies segment, and I've been at Crane for about seven years. Prior to my current role, in fact, I was president of the Crane Currency business, and prior to Crane, I worked for more than a decade in executive roles at Thales, a big international security technologies business, and earlier in my career, for my sins, I worked for the British government.
Let me start by talking about how far the Security and Authentication Technologies segment has come over the last couple of years. In doing so, I'll try and explain why we are so confident that it will be a strong organic growth engine for Crane NXT over the coming years. Over the last 18 months, we've been extremely busy in SAT. We've built a global leader in advanced security and authentication technologies, and within the segment, we have two market-leading businesses. Crane Authentication equips global brands and governments with solutions that protect products, that secure identities, and that enable the efficient collection of excise taxes by governments. Crane Currency integrates the world's most advanced banknote security technology with award-winning designs and state-of-the-art manufacturing so that the public can ultimately authenticate and trust their banknotes.
I'll explain in this presentation how each business is benefiting from strong market tailwinds. For example, from the surge in global counterfeiting and smuggling to the upgrade opportunity, which will be at least a decade long in terms of the upgrade of the U.S. currency program. I will also, as Aaron was discussing, explain how we use the Crane Business System to underpin everything that we do, accelerating the successful integration of Crane Authentication, for example, removing complexity and cost, and most importantly, driving safety, quality, customer delivery, and productivity across all parts of our business. Before I dive into each of those businesses in turn, let me give you an overview about the customers of the SAT segment and indeed some of the key financials.
In 2025, the SAT segment delivered about $810 million in sales at about 25% adjusted EBITDA and 85% free cash flow conversion. That's a very strong foundation for sustained and profitable future growth. As you can see on this slide, the majority of revenues within SAT come from governments and central banks, with the balance from leading global brands. Our customer relationships are exceptionally durable in SAT. About two-thirds of our customers have chosen to work with us for more than a decade. SAT is also a truly global business. More than half of SAT sales come from outside North America and Europe, and we support those customers with a truly multinational set of leadership teams, account management teams, and service teams with service centers based in the U.S., in Europe, in the Middle East, in India, and indeed in China.
Let's now look in a little tighter focus at Crane Authentication, a business that provides solutions that protects tax revenues and secures identity documents for governments, and also protects intellectual property and delivers licensing revenues for global brands. Over the last 18 months, we've built a global market leader in Crane Authentication, which has more than 1,000 associates globally and a portfolio of differentiated security and authentication technologies. This business operates across 3 distinct and fast-growing markets. In brand authentication, our technologies protect the public by preventing counterfeiting and product tampering, and support businesses by strengthening customer trust in their brands and boosting their licensing revenues. In government solutions, our advanced track and trace software monitors billions of individual items, giving tax authorities the intelligence and insights that they need to combat smuggling and to ensure, ultimately, that taxes are paid.
In identification security, we provide unique security technologies that authenticate passports and national ID cards, helping governments to establish people's identities at border crossings and other checkpoints. Crane Authentication's largest customer segment overall is in brand authentication, and investors may wish to take note that more than half of Crane Authentication's revenues come from higher growth emerging markets. The addressable market for Crane Authentication is both large and is fragmented between many different suppliers. To put the scale of the problem that this business is addressing into some kind of perspective. About 2% of all world commerce, that's nearly $500 billion worth of global trade, is estimated to be in counterfeited goods. On top of that, roughly $1.5 trillion worth of illicit products are smuggled across borders every year to avoid paying excise taxes.
Against this backdrop, that scale of problem, the demand for high-performing authentication solutions continues to grow, creating a market that's currently estimated at about $5 billion a year, but certainly expanding at least mid-single-digit rates. Each of the end markets that I've been talking about has its own strong growth characteristics. Global brands are battling more and more counterfeits of every conceivable product. Counterfeits, of course, reduce genuine sales for companies, and poor quality counterfeits also present reputational and potential consumer safety risks. Governments also want to protect the public from dangerous counterfeits, and in addition, they need to raise tax revenues. This is why many countries are expanding their current excise schemes from traditional areas like alcohol and cigarettes to new product categories, including bottled water and sugary soft drinks.
Finally, governments also need more effective security technology solutions to fight international criminal gangs, for whom a high-quality counterfeited passport or a national ID card is absolutely critical to enable cross-border criminal operations. Now, Crane Authentication truly stands apart in this market for a couple of reasons. First, the sheer breadth of the technologies that we have within Crane Authentication, many of which you can have a look at in the innovation showcase after these presentations. Secondly, our ability to integrate those technologies, the multiple overt and covert physical technologies, with very sophisticated and large-scale track and trace and licensing management software. It's the integration of these solutions that solves the higher value problems for governments and for global brands.
To give you a few examples, pretty much all U.S. major sports leagues and many international sports franchises, including English Premier League soccer teams and Formula One teams, rely on Crane Authentication solutions to maximize their licensing revenues and to protect their licensed products from counterfeiting. Pharmaceutical companies also use our authentication technologies to give patients confidence that the medicines they receive are genuine, and that they have not been tampered with. National tax authorities rely on our software and security technology to combat smuggling and collect billions of dollars in revenue every year. Governments use our passport and ID security technology, including the polycarbonate data pages that are becoming more and more common in passports and incorporate multiple embedded high-security features.
To illustrate how this Crane Authentication business is expanding, in just the past couple of months, we've reached agreement with a major oil company and with a leading global perfume brand to protect their revenues by helping to reduce their counterfeiting. A point I want you to take away is, across all of these markets, counterfeiters are adopting more and more sophisticated techniques. In addition to the improvement in counterfeiting, there is also increasing regulation and increasing global standards, especially in sectors where a counterfeit good can put consumers at safety risk. Both of these factors work together to amplify demand for our solutions, and these trends will reinforce Crane Authentication's positioning in the market as the trusted, scalable, globally deployed solutions that lead the market.
A little bit more on the markets and the tailwinds that Crane Authentication is enjoying, because those markets are expanding, both because global brands want to protect their revenue base and because governments want to increase their tax base. As Aaron noted earlier on, counterfeiting is accelerating worldwide, and the only logical response to accelerated counterfeiting is to deliver the turnkey solutions I've been talking about that integrate the best-of-breed technologies with the best-of-breed software electronic tracking systems. Aaron also noted the rapid digitization of supply chains, the market has rapidly discovered that basic barcodes or basic QR codes are very easily counterfeited.
Crane Authentication solves these problems by embedding counterfeit-resilient security features into the packaging, very frequently with trust anchor technologies like secure QR codes or covert taggants that can create a trusted digital identity for a product, and then that trusted identity can be tracked using our sophisticated software platforms. The result, in the example Aaron gave, in the medical field, both patients and indeed pharmacists can instantly confirm that a medicine is both genuine and that it has not been tampered with. Finally, Crane Authentication is a global leader in supporting excise tax programs in both developed and in emerging markets. Our counterfeit-resistant tax stamps prove that companies have paid the correct excise duty, and our scalable software platforms track billions of units.
Again, that's very important for tax authorities to be able to focus their enforcement efforts, to curb illicit trade, and ultimately, to protect consumers from dangerous counterfeits. Let me now try and show you how this translates into growth in some of these fast-growing markets. A powerful example is in the Gulf Cooperation Council, where most GCC member states rely on Crane Authentication's technology to generate excise revenue. Our advanced anti-counterfeit technologies in this region provide proof of duty paid and an assurance that products are genuine and safe, and our software helps these authorities in the way that I've described. In our innovation showcase later on, you can see for yourself one of the critical technologies that we use in these solutions. We call it Fortress.
It is one of the latest and certainly the most secure technology in the industry used in the fight against smuggling. Fortress fuses invisible covert features with overt security elements to allow customs investigators, and indeed the public, to verify authenticity using a standard mobile phone app. This part of Crane Authentication, I think the real takeaway is benefiting from a couple of macro trends. First, more countries are adopting excise tracking solutions to strengthen the collection of their revenues, and secondly, many of our existing customers are considering expanding these programs to cover additional product categories, such as soft drinks, sugar, vapes, and bottled water. Both of these vectors provide additional long-term growth opportunities for the business.
As important as technical innovations are, our margin expansion story is equally compelling, driven as it is by the implementation of the Crane Business System, and it's to that that I want to turn next. Now, since integrating two major acquisitions together last year to form Crane Authentication, we have applied the Crane Business System across Crane Authentication to simplify the organization, to streamline the cost base of the business, and to position it ultimately for strong and profitable growth. One of the most powerful CBS tools that we've used is the 80/20 tool, which we've used to optimize product lines in the business, reducing complexity, helping us to reset customer pricing strategies, and thus set up the business for growth. For example, we have phased out entirely a legacy hologram product and transitioned many of those customers to other solutions, including our Profound line of advanced authentication micro-optics.
Through the application of CBS, Crane Authentication has already delivered very significant changes in the business. We've reduced headcount overall in the business by about 20%. We've reduced other infrastructure costs by rationalizing several sites across the business, including one major manufacturing facility. We've optimized the supply chain, optimized research and development spending, but most importantly, simplifying the business has allowed us to refocus product and engineering and sales and marketing on accelerating the growth of our most differentiated and most profitable solutions. We've used CBS to accelerate acquisition synergies within Crane Authentication, and we've also deployed more broadly CBS across the business, embedding the cadence and the process and the tools and the expertise for every part of the business to deliver on the ambitious productivity targets. Taken together, the application of CBS is driving future growth, and it's driving margin expansion.
Indeed, based on actions already taken, in 2026, we expect to deliver about $20 million of margin improvement for Crane Authentication. We also expect to deliver about 300 basis points in annual margin improvement in 2027 and in 2028, allowing us to deliver an adjusted EBITDA in the low 20% by the end of this period. This progression is fully consistent, of course, with our guidance and sets the business up for accelerated profitable growth over the next several years. Let's now perhaps turn to Crane Currency, the other part of SAT and a business that designs, secures, and manufactures banknotes using our own proprietary security technologies that are easy for the public to recognize and indeed easy for CPI's equipment to authenticate.
At the heart of Crane Currency's unique capabilities is our micro-optics technology, which I will talk a lot about in this presentation. Showcased here on some stunning new banknote series for Curaçao and Sint Maarten. This is, in short, technology that is uniquely resistant to counterfeiting, is fully customizable, and is thus highly in demand from central banks. Over the past decade, Crane Currency as a business, has delivered consistent mid-single-digit growth, driven both by the steady expansion of banknotes in circulation and by our success in taking market share. Let me give you an overview of the business and explain why I believe its fundamentals remain exceptionally strong. Crane Currency employs about 1,200 associates across five sites in the United States and in Europe.
We leverage, as I said, security technology, design expertise, and other capabilities across two markets, the U.S. currency program and in support of central banks around the world. About one-third of our revenue comes from the United States, where we produce unique Crane Currency paper with embedded security features for both the U.S. currency program and indeed, the U.S. passport program. The remaining two-thirds of revenue come from international central banks for whom we provide a one-stop shop of banknote design, of durable banknote paper, of advanced anti-counterfeit security features, of printed banknotes, and indeed, a comprehensive suite of support services, for example, secure transport, secure storage, public education programs, and the like. The key takeaway, I think, from this slide is that Crane Currency is a highly predictable and highly stable business, and this is primarily because banknote designs do not change very frequently.
Once our security technology is specified in a banknote, that specification typically remains in place for many years, regardless of how many more times that banknote is reprinted. There is, in essence, an annuity of increasing technology sales as we get our banknotes specified with our micro-optics technology. It's also the case that where we provide banknote paper or banknote printing services, those contracts are also frequently secured through multi-year arrangements. As a result, Crane Currency has, by value, more than a year of sales in backlog, providing very, very clear visibility of our future sales and ensuring that we can deliver highly dependable future performance. The addressable market for commercial banknote production is estimated at roughly $2 billion per year. This market is served by a small handful of accredited commercial suppliers, supported by some other substrate and technology providers in the industry.
For more than 40 years, you can see the last 10 on this slide, but for more than 40 years, the number of banknotes in circulation has grown consistently. This is a long-term trend that reflects the enduring role of banknotes as a safe and convenient store of value, but also the growth in economic and populations around the world. It's also a truism that cash tends to accelerate sharply during periods of political and economic instability, and especially during periods of high inflation. Despite the rise of digital payments, in many regions, it's worth remembering that cash remains the preferred or indeed the only means of payment. More than 1 billion people worldwide have no access to any bank accounts or electronic payments at all. They rely entirely on cash for their daily transactions and indeed their savings.
Even in developed economies, cash remains important for financial inclusion, for privacy, and for resilience in the face of cyberattacks or other major digital outages. Even highly digital societies are reaffirming this. Sweden, which happens to be the first country to adopt Crane Currency's micro-optics technology way back in 2006, is an example of a country actively promoting the use of cash, both to support financial inclusion, but also to guard against digital infrastructure failure, including providing advice to citizens in Sweden to keep a substantial reserve of cash at home at all times. This reinforces a simple point. There's no evidence of a slowdown in the long-term global demand for banknotes growing. With nearly 1,000 banknote denominations worldwide, Crane Currency also has significant opportunities to expand the use of our security technologies across this global market.
The main market tailwinds for Crane Currency come from two directions: a rise in counterfeiting and the growth of emerging economies. One point I'd like to make about counterfeiting is that the internet is democratizing counterfeiting. Techniques that used to be the reserve of very specialist counterfeiters can now be learned through online tutorials, and you can buy the counterfeit materials directly from online vendors. This kind of open source counterfeiting, if you like, has made it much easier for bad actors, in particular, to mimic older and less secure features. That trend is one of the things driving central banks around the world to accelerate upgrades of their existing banknotes and to invest more in technologies that are most likely to remain counterfeit resilient for many, many years.
Secondly, Crane Currency has trusted long-standing relationships with pretty much every major central bank in the world and is particularly strong in parts of the world where banknote requirements are accelerating fastest, for example, in Africa and in Latin America. It's also the case, if we look historically, that when our motion security technology was specified on the US $100 bill in 2013, it triggered a surge of demand in the international market for Crane Currency's micro-optics. The upcoming redesign of the US dollar certainly has potential to spark a similar wave of interest and create another multi-year cycle of accelerated growth in emerging markets. In short, we think Crane Currency is extremely well-positioned to capitalize on these macro trends. It has strong relationships across the central bank community and a product portfolio that is purpose-built for today's threat environment.
Now, with these growth catalysts in place, the next major inflection point for Crane Currency begins right here in the United States. Crane Currency, as I'm sure many of you know, has supplied the unique banknote paper with embedded security features for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing since 1879. This paper is produced using a secret Crane Currency recipe and proprietary manufacturing processes that give the US banknotes their instantly recognizable feel. This US dollar paper is also the most durable banknote substrate in the world. Durability really matters to central banks because it reduces the cost of replacing banknotes and also reduces their environmental impact.
According to published Federal Reserve data, a $1 bill, to give you an illustration, lasts an average of 7.2 years in circulation, and that compares with typically 12-18 months for a normal low-denomination note elsewhere in the world. It's an extraordinarily high-performing substrate. The Federal Reserve also publishes the chart that you can see replicated on this slide, which shows 2025 print volumes and the approximate variable cost of each banknote denomination. What this chart really does is it illustrates a simple truth, that for any country, the higher the value of the banknote, the higher the risk of counterfeiting, and therefore, the more sophisticated and more costly the security features must be.
As you can see from this slide, a $20 bill currently costs nearly twice as much to produce as a $1 bill, a $100 bill, incorporating also our advanced micro-optics, costs an additional $0.04 per banknote on top. At this point, it's important that I remind you that no central bank will ever disclose the future designs or security features of an upgraded banknote before they launch it. There is 0% possibility that I will comment on any specific design or technology decisions being made at the moment by the Federal Reserve.
For purely illustrative purposes, if you were to assume that the other U.S. denominations were raised to the same security level as the current 100 dollar bill, and of course, print volumes remain pretty constant, then the incremental annual cost of the enhanced security in those banknotes would be roughly $15 million annually for the relatively low-volume 10 dollar bill, and closer to $50 million annually for the high-volume 20 dollar bill. What that means is if the 10 dollar, the 20 dollar, and the 50 dollar note were all upgraded to that level, the level of the current U.S. 100 dollar bill, then hypothetically, this technology upgrade opportunity could be worth an incremental $100 million of revenue per year. With that in mind, let's look at where the U.S. redesign cycle stands today and how indeed we are positioned to win.
The Federal Reserve introduced micro-optic security on the $100 bill way back in 2013. The other U.S. denominations have not been upgraded in more than 20 years. The Federal Reserve has stated publicly that it will begin rolling out new upgraded banknotes in 2026, starting with a redesigned $10 bill. The remaining denominations will follow in roughly 2-year intervals. A primary goal of this redesign cycle is clearly to improve counterfeit deterrence of U.S. banknotes. To prepare for this, Crane Currency completed major investments in 2025 to upgrade both our Dalton, Massachusetts facility, where we manufacture U.S. banknote paper, and our facility in Nashua, New Hampshire, which is our primary site for manufacturing micro-optics security technology.
As a result of these investments, Crane Currency's capabilities to support the U.S. new series are fully proven, and they are ready to go. Beyond Crane Currency, we expect this banknote redesign cycle, as I said earlier, to create a growth tailwind for other parts of Crane NXT. For example, the shift to new machine readability standards will inevitably drive demand for CPI, as note acceptance machines, sensors, and software will need to be upgraded to handle the new banknotes. Michael Mahan will speak more about that opportunity in the next presentation. Now, let's take a moment just to unpack some of the technology, some of the next wave of innovation that will drive the future of banknote security. Crane Currency's micro-optics technologies are today the world's leading banknote security features.
They enable the public to authenticate a banknote in a fraction of a second, in a glance, without any training and any tools. They're fully customizable. They allow our incredibly talented design team to create highly engaging, three-dimensional, moving, interactive visual effects that reinforce authenticity and enhance the banknote's design. Critically, of course, Crane's micro-optics deliver strong anti-counterfeit protection together with that customizable design. I want to stress that the materials, the processes, the software, the very equipment used to produce our micro-optics simply does not exist outside of Crane Currency, making this technology highly resistant to counterfeiters. We can also integrate forensic-level security features that are detectable only by law enforcement or by the issuing central bank. Our technology is protected by more than 250 patents, by extensive trade secrets, by proprietary chemistry, and indeed, proprietary design software.
As you can see on this slide, we produce two broad product families of micro-optics. MOTION delivers complex, dynamic visual effects that appear to float and move with striking realism. RAPID offers super sharp, high-speed movement designed to catch the eye immediately. Either can be combined with our Detect technology to make our micro-optics securely machine-readable. The breakthrough that excites me the most is our latest innovation. It's one that truly redefines what is possible in banknote design and security. We call this latest innovation Vision. For the first time, we can individually color each of the several million micro-optic lenses on a single banknote with its own color. That unlocks a completely new level of security and design possibilities that the industry has never seen before. Be in no doubt that Vision is a quantum leap forward, not an incremental improvement.
It's a quantum leap forward in banknote design and security. It opens up this entirely new world of multicolor micro-optics that will bring banknotes to life in astonishing ways, whilst also providing a step change in anti-counterfeit protection. Vision's multicolor effects are so sophisticated that they push way beyond anything that counterfeiters or our competitors can hope to replicate. I also want to stress that we've innovated on the form factors in which we can supply these micro-optics. Historically, we have woven our micro-optics into the banknote paper, as is the case with the 3D blue stripe on the $100 bill. Our technology can now alternatively be securely applied on the surface of a banknote.
That allows us to take on a new part of the market, expensive foil competitors, and it extends the use case for micro-optics from paper banknotes to paper, and hybrid, and polymer banknotes. Being able to address polymer banknotes alone extends our access to another 7% of the global market. Last year, Fiji became the first country in the world to launch a full series of polymer banknotes, featuring MOTION SURFACE technology on all of their banknotes. You can, of course, see those banknotes in our innovation area. If you'll indulge me, let me just take you a little bit deeper into the capabilities of this technology by talking about this The Beauty of Life house note. A house note is a banknote that we design and print in-house to showcase the full power of our designs and security technology.
Everyone in the room here today will get your own Beauty of Life banknote to take home with you before you leave. When you examine it, notice the shimmering skin of the salamander. Notice the flapping wings of the ladybird, the spiral movements in the snail's shell, the frogs swimming in the background. These are all fluid, organic motions that our eyes instinctively recognize. They're important because independent research shows that people are incredibly good at authenticating banknotes, especially when natural lifelike movements are present. As this shows, when micro-optics are seamlessly integrated into the overall design of a banknote, the brain can recognize authenticity in the fraction of a second. Let's click a little bit deeper than that. This MOTION SURFACE stripe contains about 5 million tiny lenses. Each of those lenses is perfectly aligned with encrypted layer of nano text.
This complexity is part of what makes this technology so incredibly difficult to reverse engineer. As we dive into the technology, you can even see that how we can add in forensic features, like microtext, that are not at all visible to the naked eye. We can include, as I mentioned, an encrypted layer to make the technology even harder to replicate. Now, this technology is made possible in part by software that has been developed by Crane Currency in-house. It's the software that allows our designers to show customers animations like this, and then to rapidly adjust designs through a consumer-friendly design process. As I mentioned, by placing the micro-optics on the surface of the banknote, we can showcase the full capability of the technology, and that means we can apply it to all sorts of substrates.
In the innovation showcase, in addition to the banknote you'll get to take home, we'll be delighted to show you a very special version of this banknote, manufactured in full multicolor Vision technology, to give you a true glimpse of where the future of banknote security is headed. Now, these innovations are redefining what is possible in a banknote. They're also very directly expanding our addressable market and accelerating the adoption of our technology globally. As a result of these product innovations, for the first time in our history, we can offer multicolor micro-optic security technology for every banknote on any substrate. This has significantly enhanced our ability to drive future growth. Be in no doubt, our technology continues to drive new customers, new customer wins at a solid pace.
In 2013, as you can see on this slide, when Crane Currency had only a MOTION product, and this was prior to the specification in the U.S. 100 dollar bill, our micro-optics were specified in just 29 banknote denominations worldwide. Today, our technology is specified in 170 denominations, with 20 new denominations converting to our micro-optics during 2025, 11 of those in the final quarter of last year. As I mentioned earlier, We have, I believe, the best team in the industry, and we have a clear line of sight, as this slide shows, to more than 70 banknotes that we are targeting to upgrade over the next 4 years, and that includes 15 central banks who plan to upgrade their entire new series. The map on this slide breaks down those opportunities roughly by region.
It reinforces the point that the largest opportunities for growth for Crane Currency internationally are in regions such as Africa and in Latin America and in the Middle East, where Crane Currency has excellent references and has historically been most successful. Even using conservative assumptions, converting a historically reasonable proportion of these qualified opportunities represents an annualized growth opportunity of more than $100 million per year. With our technology leadership and our global reach, Crane Currency is very well positioned to capture this growth. To support this demand, we are naturally investing in capacity, in resilience, and in speed to market. Manufacturing banknotes, to remind you, is a highly specialized business. Suppliers must operate from audited, secure, access-controlled facilities. We must use accredited technologies.
We must be able to convert very complex requirements from central banks into banknotes that meet exacting manufacturability standards, and so on. In short, central banks will only work with partners that can demonstrate years of proven capability and have multiple strong references in this industry. Of course, we've got this extraordinary history within Crane Currency, which dates back to 1755 in Sweden and 1879 in the U.S. Our focus isn't on the past, it's on future profitable growth. We are ready to support the U.S. currency upgrade. We have recently launched this breakthrough multicolor VISION technology, and as such, we're moving key sites immediately to 24/7 staffing to meet the expanding demand from international currency customers. The next step is to expand our capacity to produce micro-optics still further.
To achieve this, we will be installing a new micro-optics production line in Nashua, in New Hampshire, and another in Europe. These investments will increase capacity further, they will strengthen our operational resilience, they'll improve our operational flexibility, and most importantly, they will position us to meet the needs of the new international customers that we expect to win over the next four years. Stepping back, what does all of this mean for SAT's performance? Well, we expect to convert 10-15 new banknotes every year to our micro-optics technology. Additionally, if you look at the actions that were taken last year to optimize Crane Authentication, together with the disciplined execution of the Crane Business System, we expect to expand margins in that business by approximately 300 basis points each year.
Why are we confident that we can deliver this growth and improvement in margins? Because Crane Authentication is very well positioned to capture growth in brand protection and in the expansion of government tax recovery schemes, and to meet the surging demand for passports and more secure identity documents. As I hope I've convinced you, Crane Currency is positioned very strongly on the back of the U.S. currency upgrade and due to the growth of market-leading VISION and surface technologies to continue to take more market share. In short, we expect SAT to deliver mid-single-digit plus growth from 2025 to 2028 due to the currency program in the U.S., complemented by more profitable growth in international currency and indeed in Crane Authentication.
As a result, by 2028, we expect the SAT segment to be a $1 billion revenue business, delivering 28% adjusted EBITDA, even as we continue to invest in the additional capacity that is needed to take advantage of the growth opportunities ahead. Let me close by returning to my main headline, which is that in SAT, we are accelerating organic growth through technology leadership. Crane NXT's SAT segment is already a global leader in overt and covert security technologies and in the track and trace and licensing management software needed to support both global brands and government tax schemes. It is these highly differentiated technologies that position these businesses for accelerated profitable growth in a world where, let's not forget, counterfeiting is growing and smuggling is expanding. Both of the businesses in SAT have market-leading positions.
Both operate in markets with real tailwinds, both have significant opportunities to gain market share, and both are strengthened by the disciplined execution of the Crane Business System and by the best security technology available anywhere in our industries. For our guests in the room this morning, I strongly encourage you to visit the innovation showcase so that you can see firsthand many of these extraordinary technologies that are protecting brands, protecting governments, and protecting central banks and their currency around the world. Thank you for your patience and time today. I'd now like to hand over to Michael Mahan, who will provide an update on our excellent CPI business. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. I want to echo Aaron and Sam in thanking all of you for joining us today, both here in the room as well as online virtually. I'm Michael Mahan, President of CPI. It's a pleasure to walk you through our business, our strategy, and the opportunities ahead of us. I've been leading CPI for almost 2 years, after a long career managing global industrial technology businesses at GE, Haier Appliances, and Schneider Electric. At CPI, we've built a reputation grounded in best-in-class detection technologies and a relentless focus on operational excellence. Over the next several minutes, my goal is to give you a clear picture of why CPI is positioned not just to compete, but to lead through technological differentiation, disciplined execution, and a strategy designed to expand our margins and strengthen our free cash flow profile.
You'll hear today that we're at a particularly exciting point in our journey. Several structural tailwinds, most notably the upcoming U.S. currency refresh that Sam just described, create opportunities uniquely suited to CPI's capabilities and scale. At the same time, the evolution of our service platform, the continued demand for automation, and disciplined use of the Crane Business System are all accelerating our performance. With that as our starting point, let me walk you through where we're going to focus today. Here are the four key messages that I want to leave you with. First, CPI is and remains the market leader in the detection equipment and services that underpin the secure, reliable currency handling across a wide range of industries. These themes will come together across the next several slides. Second, the U.S. currency refresh represents a significant and multi-year tailwind.
This is not just a product upgrade cycle; it's a once-in-a-generation modernization of the nation's currency infrastructure. CPI is exceptionally well-positioned to benefit because of our scale, our installed base, and our leadership in detection technologies. Third, our service business continues to expand into attractive, higher-growth adjacencies. As more industries digitize and automate payment and authentication processes, the need for reliable, high-uptime service grows with it. Finally, our disciplined execution of the Crane Business System continues to drive operating efficiency and margin expansion throughout CPI. This system has become an engine of continuous improvement, allowing us to simplify processes, strengthen quality, and enhance delivery performance. Now that I've outlined some of the core dynamics, let's dig into CPI's business profile and the fundamentals that support these themes. CPI has been the market leader in the spaces where we play for decades.
Our hardware portfolio spans banknote validators, coin recyclers, and increasingly, cashless solutions. These products have become mission-critical for customers whose operations depend on accuracy, durability, and security. Our solutions are recognized for their unmatched detection capability, truly the best technology in the industry, a key reason we've sustained leadership across gaming, retail, and financial services for decades. Complementing that is our service platform, which includes infield services, depot repair, preventative maintenance contracts, and on-demand support. This recurring revenue engine strengthens customer stickiness and contributes to margin stability. Our vending business is set apart by our ability to deliver a truly end-to-end solution. We don't just manufacture the machine; we provide the software that runs it and the payment technologies that power every transaction. We do this across all three major categories: cold drinks, snacks, and coffee.
Altogether, we ended 2025 at $850 million in revenue, supported by a diversified global footprint across the Americas, Western Europe, and the rest of the world. My key point here is that our strength isn't tied to one product or one region. It's the combination of hardware, service, technology, and global presence that positions us as a durable, market-leading business, enabling consistent free cash flow generation over the long term. Now that you've got a sense of how the business fits together, let's talk a little bit about the markets where we operate and exactly what's shaping them. Across all three segments, CPI is strategically aligned to secular drivers: automation, security, uptime, and multi-channel payment acceptance. Within each segment, payment hardware, services, and vending, the underlying market dynamics remain positive.
Starting with payment hardware, this is a $1.5 billion global market that's growing in the low single digits. The growth is driven by continued automation in gaming and retail, as well as the need for more advanced counterfeit detection technologies. Even with the consolidation of physical banking locations, demand remains strong in areas such as kiosks, cash automation, and smart safes. Our services segment, a $500 million market, is growing at mid-single digits and is highly attractive from a profitability standpoint. As more self-checkout and kiosks systems deploy globally, uptime becomes critical. That creates strong demand for high-reliability field service capabilities that CPI can deliver. This is a market where our expertise and network density give us real structural advantage in the market. Finally, the vending market, roughly $400 million, also continues to grow at low single digits.
The consolidation of vending operators has driven standardization. That standardization favors vendor partners capable of delivering scalable, interoperable solutions across hardware, software, and payment, like us here at CPI. While those market trends are important, one major catalyst deserves its own focus: the U.S. New Series Bank Note Refresh. The U.S. New Series program is one of the most important opportunities on CPI's horizon. As Sam showed, this program represents a significant technology upgrade to the nation's banknotes and detection systems, including enhancements in AI imaging, infrared, magnetic, and fluorescence detection. These new technologies will require the replacement of older equipment and substantial updates to software platforms across the entire installed base. For CPI, this is a multi-phase opportunity. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we began customer engagement and readiness activities.
In 2026, the Federal Reserve launches its public education campaign. New authentication software begins rolling out. From 2027 through 2028, we expect a heavy cycle of equipment upgrades and new hardware deployments. From 2029 onward, annual enterprise software revenue will continue throughout the multi-year rollout of new notes. Importantly, more than 25,000 currently installed units must be replaced in the field, as they're not compatible with the new banknotes. This replacement cycle is not discretionary. It is mandatory for all currency-handling operations. It represents a roughly $50 million revenue opportunity for CPI in the 2027 and 2028 cycle. This program provides not only a major uplift in hardware demand, but also recurring software and service opportunities extending all the way through 2034.
This program ties directly into the growing importance of our service franchise, as they'll be an important part of the field upgrade process. They're becoming an increasingly critical differentiator for CPI and our customers. Let's turn to that next. Our service business is focused on three strategic pillars. One, solidifying our core service revenue with an attach rate above 80% and a growing depot repair model. Two, expanding into profitable, high-growth adjacencies such as smart safes, kiosk systems, and self-checkout, which are increasingly proliferating around the world. Three, leveraging the Crane Business System to improve operating efficiency, including optimized routing, faster response times, and better first-time fix rates. Collectively, these initiatives position our service segment to deliver sustained mid-single-digit growth, high contribution margins, and industry-leading reliability.
For investors, the message is clear: Our service platform is proven and durable growth engine with both margin and free cash flow benefits. A big reason we're able to scale the service business so effectively is the Crane Business System. Let me talk a little bit about what that looks like in action across all of CPI. As Aaron shared earlier, one of CPI's most important strengths is our disciplined use of the Crane Business System. CBS is embedded in our culture and how we operate. It has allowed us to drive meaningful improvements across manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and commercial processes. Let me highlight a few concrete examples. In our U.S. factory, we've improved vending line rates by roughly 160% following a series of targeted Kaizen events.
We've reduced line labor requirements in Mexico by over 25% through implementation of robotics, while also eliminating repetitive stress points. In the UK, we've used automated track assembly, which has led to measurable reductions in field quality issues. On the commercial side, we've used CBS to improve pricing discipline, deliver delivery consistency, and contract management. These are not small adjustments, and they compound year over year over year. The result is a steady climb in profitability here at CPI. EBITDA margins have increased from 28% in 2022 to 31% in 2025, with a clear line of sight to 32% by 2028. CBS is one of the most durable competitive advantages that we have, and it's working. With CBS driving sustained operational and financial improvement, let's turn to what this means for CPI's outlook over the next several years.
Looking forward, CPI's financial outlook is strong, and we are confident in our targets. By 2028, we expect revenue to reach roughly $890 million, supported by the U.S. new series refresh, growth in our services portfolio, continued pricing and commercial discipline, and platform simplification and operational improvements. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow to around $280 million, with margins expanding to approximately 32%. Free cash flow conversion remains above 100%, reflecting the capital-light nature of our business model and our disciplined operating structure. Our productivity initiatives contribute around 30 basis points of annual margin improvement, providing a stable tailwind to earnings. We are committed to maintaining market leadership while delivering consistent, high-quality earnings and cash flow. Let me close by bringing it all together and wrapping up on a few key takeaways from today.
CPI remains the industry leader in detection equipment and services, supported by unrivaled technology and a globally diversified footprint. The U.S. currency refresh creates a powerful tailwind that extends across nearly a decade. Our service business continues to scale into high-growth adjacencies with strong profitability. The Crane Business System is delivering repeatable, disciplined margin expansion. Taken together, I'm confident that this business is positioned to deliver best-in-class margin and strong free cash flow for years to come. Thank you for your time today. I'll turn it over to Matt Roache to moderate our first Q&A session.
Thanks, Michael. At this time, we're going to move into the first of our two Q&A sessions. If you have a question, please raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to you. Please stand and state your name and the name of your firm before asking your question. The first session will focus on questions related to Aaron, Sam, and Michael's presentations and what you've heard so far this morning. We'll dedicate the second Q&A session, following Christina's presentation, to our financials and M&A priorities, so we'll plan to take those questions then. With that, I'm glad to welcome Aaron, Sam, and Michael back to the stage. Let's take our first question.
Hi, good morning. Rob Davis from ACK. Just, two questions for Aaron and for Sam, on currency. I guess the first is, if you could talk about your assumptions for the mix of volumes for international and U.S. in terms of how much currency you'd expect in circulation for the United States. It's been a, you know, arguably declining medium, and then the converse for international. Also, if you could just discuss competitively what you're seeing. You know, obviously, you're not necessarily the only game in town, where your advantages are, where you see other competition potentially coming in that's, you know, putting some restraint on maybe $0.113, not going to $0.12 or $0.13. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Rob.
Thank you.
Currency mix and pressure.
Okay.
Let me see.
... Yeah, yeah. The, the mix we see between US and international, I think, will remain pretty similar to it is at the moment. You'll see we have the growth coming through the US currency program, but we'll also have significant growth coming through on the international side, of Crane Currency as well. In terms of the competitive position in the market, you know, one thing it's important to realize, and I hinted at this in some of the prepared remarks, this is an industry with very, very high barriers to entry.
I mean, it's a bit of a truism to say central banks will happily work with you to print their banknotes if you have at least 100 years of experience of printing banknotes, and you have accredited secure facilities, and you have references from at least a dozen other central banks. Other than that, they're not really going to talk to you much. So it's a, you know, it's a pretty stable industry in terms of competitive position.
Within that industry, the main change is as technologies come and go within the industry, and as I said, the big trend in the industry is older, less secure security features becoming much easier for counterfeiters to attack, and that creating the catalyst for central banks to upgrade their banknote series in order to maintain the trust of the public in the banknotes that they use. I didn't hear all of your question, so if I didn't address everything...
I can add a little, Sam. To your question, Rob, on the U.S. mix question, as Sam alluded to, we're just taking a very prudent approach to assume it doesn't change on a go-forward basis, that it's similar to what we're seeing for 2026, and that'll continue both in mix and volume, for that matter. That's our assumption. Really, the lift in the business comes from the increase in technology or the technology density on every note. I think with that, you know, what makes this business so exciting is it's incredibly, there's an incredibly wide moat around the business.
I think, as many of you have commented to me, as wide as any I've seen, with the amount of requirements needed. It keeps new entrants out of the market, quite frankly, and with our technology leadership, it's accelerating our growth and share. As Sam alluded to, we talked on our fourth quarter earnings, 20 micro-optics wins for us exceeded our expectations for the year. We see a very robust pipeline of countries accelerating their redesigns in the next 3 years and, you know, have a high confidence that we will continue to have our unfair share to a certain extent, of those wins. Hopefully, that helps, Rob. We can do a quick follow-up.
Just to follow up quickly, you mentioned in terms of volume, you'd expect that to stay flattish. Can you compare that with what you've seen for volume printed over the last several years? Is there a risk that as people use more credit and alternative payments, that just volume and circulation would come down, and therefore, the Treasury-
Yeah
would print less?
Maybe I'll talk to the U.S. I think there's some very good reporting on this that certainly through COVID, it, and what happened with COVID, we're finally coming out of that cycle, and it's normalizing the volumes in the U.S. It's a little bit of a difficult picture when you look back of what happened during that period. I would probably point, Sam, your comment here to the international market, what you see is a very steady growth of banknotes in circulation. That's probably the more common.
Yeah. Yeah, the one thing to remember about the use of the US dollar is that it's not just used in the United States. As the world's reserve currency, these banknotes are used around the world in transactions and as savings. You know, people's savings will often be a $20 note or a $50 note in parts of the world, and so there's very strong international demand for US banknotes continuing as well. Aaron's completely correct. In the international market, at any one time, you have one country's demand, you know, up and down, up and down, but the macro trend internationally is continued steady growth.
We have...
All right. Hi, Bob Labick, CJS Securities. Nice to see you all. Thanks for having us today. I want to start with a big-picture question for Aaron. First, congratulations on the almost 3 years of being public and everything you guys have accomplished. Looking back over the 3 years, could you tell us the biggest surprises, positively and negatively, and how those may have changed your roadmap that you originally put out?
Yeah, no, hey, thank you, Bob, and thanks for being with us on this journey, over the last 3 years. I think clearly the biggest surprise for us and a wonderful strength of the company is what's happening in the international currency business. You know, our team knew about, as many of you did, this upgrade cycle in the U.S., and we've executed, I think, flawlessly in those upgrades to be ready for the U.S., but the strength of the international currency business has exceeded our expectations. That's why we stand here today highly confident in the outlook and some of the information Sam showed, that this business is going to continue to grow and has a durable, sustainable growth trajectory with margin expansion into the future.
I think also perhaps a surprise for many folks, as Michael alluded to, is the benefit of this to the CPI business, that if you would say, what is, you know, the other side of our learnings, certainly we had to navigate different headwinds in the CPI business over these first three years, of which they've abated. That included the gaming business gaming vertical destocking through COVID. That has now passed, that business is executed exactly as we had forecasted coming out of 25, we now have our service business growing, we now have this added catalyst in CPI with the U.S. new series. Again, a lot to be optimistic for, Bob, I think, as we look ahead, built on some of these tailwinds as we exited 25.
Thanks. Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson. What determines if a CPI unit needs to be replaced or upgraded, and what verticals stand to benefit the most from the redesign?
Thank you for the question, Matt. Appreciate that. I think there's a range of features. As Sam mentioned, within the new U.S. currency series or any new banknote series globally, there's often the addition of new machine-readable features. In some cases, that can be accomplished with a software upgrade that we do appropriately monetize in the field, and that provides us some real nice uplift. In other cases, the age of the machine may dictate that the sensor stack that was built into that machine seven or eight or nine years ago just can't hit the new machine readability standards. That requires a whole new hardware refresh.
We see it's a real tailwind that's gonna drive a lot of hardware replacement cycles, but also is gonna drive a lot of service contract renewals, because as the new equipment goes in, of course, we have a very high attach rate in our service business, so that will continue to pay an annuity as well.
I'm Charlie Rose with Cruiser Capital Advisors. This may be a stupid question, so I apologize if it's stupid. Is there any correlation, Sam or Aaron, to your business as the dollar has been going through a degradation, and there's been a migration to physical assets like gold or silver, does that have any negative consequence to your long-term growth rate and to the business model itself? Just maybe it's a stupid question. I don't know, because it's something I see as both from a macro perspective and from a just from an earnings perspective. Give me your thoughts there, please. I really respect what you're doing, but I'm just wondering if there's something there that is a sort of a macro issue we should be concerned about. Thank you.
Yeah, I think it's a great question. The honest answer is, there is a very limited amount of understanding on the detail of exactly why demand for banknotes grows and shrinks within different economies, and that's due to the very simple fact that these banknotes are anonymous and not tracked, and the data that we have to rely on to understand why people are holding on to banknotes, why they're spending them, why they're using other payments, has to come from surveys, kind of secondary level. The direct answer to your question is, I've certainly seen no evidence to suggest that there has been any significant impact from a flight, if indeed a flight is happening towards other types of assets like gold.
The macro trends that the data suggests are most important are the ones I talked about in my remarks, which is, as the GDP of a given country grows, as population grows, whatever the share of the payments that are banknotes within that country grows with the overall size of the pie, and in particular, high inflation environments drive very significant increases in banknote usage overall. No, I'm not aware of any research, but I'll ask the team, and if we find any, I'll get back to you.
Hi, Bob Labick again. You had a slide talking about the currency CapEx, and obviously there's a lot of significant growth and opportunity internationally for you, and you're expanding your capacity. I think you said 7% of sales for the next few years. Two questions: What has it been? You know, what are the kind of risks and milestones ahead of putting in this incremental capacity, and why not 15% next year and just get ahead of it? I guess three questions, but.
Thanks, Bob. I'll start, Sam, you can add in. Historically, for Crane NXT, we've been in this 3, 4% range of CapEx. By the way, we expect that to continue as into a 3%-5% range. That'll obviously be higher in currency for the reasons Sam walked us through, lower for CPI. That's how we arrive at this 3%-5% range. We think that's the right range for us, Bob, to meet our growth targets.
When you think about the currency investment, the last few years has also been in that 5% range as we really focused on the U.S. upgrade, as Sam alluded to, and some of you have seen as you visited our facilities, particularly in Dalton, Massachusetts, and then in Nashua, New Hampshire, where we make our micro-optics. There, we've doubled the footprint of the site and allowed enough room to continue to add lines in every year. There's simple logistics, some of which Sam alluded to, of a typical line for our proprietary micro-optics, takes anywhere between 18-24 months to install. It also requires us to bring on talent and the operators of those lines, train them. That obviously has a little bit of a productivity hit when you do that.
It also requires all of our operators to have U.S. government security clearance, which is a real moat around this business, quite frankly, to have an entire workforce underneath the security blanket to produce this product for central banks. There is just some natural cadence and time. That's why we're working with outside partners in other areas of the business, in substrate manufacturing and banknote manufacturing as well, to help just given the demand from our international customers. I think we're pacing this accordingly. Our idea here is to make sure we're meeting this demand and the growth targets we've set out through 2028, and we'll continue to feed the investment in the currency business commensurate with the growth and keep CapEx in this range between 3% and 5%.
Yeah, just to build on that, I'll just add 2 points. The first is, what a high-class problem to have as a business. You know, this is a great position to be in, that we're taking so much market share that we need to continue to invest to expand our production capacity. The second thing is the Crane Currency team have done a really good job, and those of you who've been to visit Dalton or Nashua recently will have seen this for yourselves, in the investments that we've made over the last 2 years in executing on that CapEx investment to get ready for the U.S. currency program. These are complex things, upgrading paper machines, installing new micro-optics lines, very complicated technology, and the team have just executed on those programs brilliantly.
The third point, just to reinforce, is we're choosing to invest this additional capacity in our micro-optics production. We will be gaining additional productivity from our international paper mill in Sweden, from our banknote production in Malta, by applying all of the Crane Business System tools that we've talked about, getting more uptime, getting more speed through the machine. There will be additional capacity, but the new CapEx that we're spending is principally, almost exclusively on the micro-optics, because that's where the demand is, and also that's the highest margin products that we produce in the business. That gives you an idea of where we're allocating the capital within Crane Currency.
Hello. Hello, Ryan Thorpe from AllianceBernstein. Question on the CPI side. It seemed like a lot of your organic growth was tied to the idea that there will be a hardware refresh cycle due to incompatible units with new currency. Specifically, you said we're gonna refresh the hardware, and then we're also going to sell services packages on that hardware. Bridge me from now to the I think it was a $50 million opportunity. How much of that comes from hardware, and how much of it comes from services? Where is your attach rate now relative to the 80% attach rate that you targeted? What's changing that's allowing you to increase that? I think there were.
Sure.
probably five questions in there. You can pick whichever one you like.
Yeah, thanks, Ryan. Why don't I start, Michael, and I'll pass it over to you. The number that Michael showed for the hardware upgrade, Ryan, is embedded in the growth target at the final slide of his presentation. We're expecting hardware, or just to zoom up a moment as we think about CPI, we have the hardware business services and vending. We're expecting that hardware business to be a low single-digit grower over the period, over the next 3 years. Embedded in that assumption is the $50 million or so of the currency upgrade. Services will not only benefit from the U.S. currency upgrade, but it also benefits from the third-party services that are being extended, that are beyond and distinctly different from the U.S. upgrade equipment program.
That's where we're sustainably growing at mid-single digits, and you've seen us do that, quite frankly, over the last few years as we've invested in this service business, in its capabilities and its infrastructure, IT systems, is continuing. We're exiting 2025, growing already that business of mid-single digits, that has, again, nothing to do with the U.S. currency because of this expansion into new areas in the same footprint of the stores and shops we're operating in today. I'll let you comment on attach rates, Michael.
I think. Thanks for the question. I think the short answer is we already have outstanding attach rates in the service business today. On our large format pieces of equipment, you know, the big MPX machines that go in the back of casinos or central banks, our attach rate on service is 100%. In our smaller format pieces of equipment that go into bank branches and retailers, even that attach rate is north of 70%. It nets out to a roughly 80% attach rate for the business, and we think that continues and maybe even improves a little bit. We haven't assumed any improvement of that attach rate in the $50 million number. We just assume that we continue to get the great attach rate and annuity that we get already.
Thank you.
Thanks.
On the brand authentication, you had some examples up there, and, you know, one of them was, like, the sports leagues, whether it's the NBA or others. Can you just walk me through how that works, how the process works in terms of the customer, what you're providing? Is this a fixed fee type of thing? Is this a variable per unit of merchandise, or what exactly is important here, how long the contracting is, and, just kinda get a little bit closer flavor of how that business works.
Yeah, very happy to. Thanks for the question. It depends customer by customer. Perhaps if I describe a suite of services that we might provide, each individual customer might have different elements of this. On the brand protection side, there may be some physical security technologies that we're attaching to a particular product to allow the brand themselves or the law enforcement agencies to be able to authenticate those products. Those will typically be on a per unit basis, selling the technology per unit. Perhaps the more interesting business model, which was referred to in the original video, is around licensing management solutions. For many, particularly of our sports customers, what we're doing is helping them to manage all of their licensees around the world that produce their products and sell them in different regions.
To do that, we provide the underlying software that supports all of that service as a service, and usually, there will also then be a physical token, a stamp, a secure technology of some description, that will then be sold to those licensees for them to affix on those products, not just to secure the products, but also to prove that they've paid the licensing royalty to be able to produce that merchandise overall. There are additional higher-level services that that licensing management system can provide. For example, you can add a QR code onto the label to allow you to get consumer feedback, so that when somebody buys a U.S. sports jersey in South Africa, they can get instant feedback on the quality of the product that's being produced.
You may also be able to get some feedback on the data of the people who are buying your products, which can be extremely valuable from a marketing perspective. You can also understand if, and this rarely happens of course, licensees sell their products outside of their region, because you're getting feedback from the end customer about where they're buying the products, and you know exactly where they're being sold. All of these elements of value can be swept up in our licensing management solution, which usually consists of a software solution that's integrated tightly with our customers and some physical security technology as well.
The precise business models can change a little bit between customer and customer, but to your, to your last point, a large number of these systems and solutions have been in operation with sports customers, in particular, for a very long period of time, for decades. That's partly because the integration of our systems are pretty tight with our customers. It's mainly because we invest a lot of time and effort in understanding their needs and responding to them. It's partly because we also happen to have the best security technology in the world. That, that's, you know, you get a bit of brand protection, a bit of licensing management, and very often those two things work together.
Final thought is that there are other services, such as we do online brand protection, solutions for many of our customers, finding counterfeits online, being sold on websites, on social media or marketplaces. Again, that can be integrated as an additional service that we provide. Some products, some services mixed together.
I just add to what Sam said, just as a reminder for those who had listened to our last few earnings calls. Again, this is a business of wide moats. The switching cost is high. We're very proud of this long-standing relationships we've had here in the U.S. with major sports leagues. That included the NFL, which we announced in our 3Q call that we've renewed for a multi-year contract. In the fourth quarter, just a few weeks ago, in that earnings call, we announced a extension and a renewal of our contract with Major League Baseball. Very long-standing, premier global brands that attract more of those brands in, again, a flywheel effect back to the core business.
I have a question that came in online. "Thanks for laying out the opportunity and laying out the $ opportunity with an SAT when it comes to the increase in variable cost per note in the U.S. with currency refresh cycle, the expected wins internationally, the greater than 15 refresh cycles, and the positive impact of the refresh cycle on CPI. Could you put that in context of your 2028 targets and help us understand how much of these catalysts are embedded in your guidance already versus an incremental opportunity?
Sure. Sure. Thanks for the question from those online. Appreciate it. I'll hold the bulk of that answer, actually, till after our break. That's a wonderful setup. Thank you for that, where Christina will be going into more detail on the consolidated view of Crane NXT over the next few years. What I will say is as we go forward and we talk about both the SAT numbers and Michael's on CPI, we have assumed or embedded those into our projections.
While there certainly, could be more wins in international currency or a faster refresh cycle in CPI, we've tried to make the outlook prudent, like we've done in all of our forecasting, to ensure the numbers we're putting forward, very importantly, allow us to do what we say we're going to do, which is incredibly important in the company and I know for all of our investors.
Just a follow-up from the same person asking the question: "Can you give us context on what prior U.S. currency refresh cycles have done for CPI, and what would be different this time that allows for a greater opportunity?
You know, it. The question was around the last refresh cycle for U.S. currency. I think it's interesting to point out, in most of our professional lifetime, there really hasn't been one of any scale. The last upgrade was 2013, and that was the introduction of micro-optics. That's obviously 13 years ago. And there's been no update in any substantial way of the rest of the currency. I think we're in a little bit of a uncharted water in a very positive way, knowing, again, having the advantage, let's say, of designing and working with the BEP and the Treasury on the new currency to understand what kind of technology is needed to read it in our equipment business, again, is a unique and durable advantage for our company.
We suspect it will be, as Michael alluded to, like nothing we've quite experienced before inside the business.
There was a follow-up, I think.
Hi, a question for Michael Mahan on CPI. I, Robert Wertheimer from ACK again. Just a question, as you look at equipment, payments equipment consumer, I'm just thinking there's more of a growth in self-checkout. You're seeing more, you know, iOS devices, just a much different state of technology as we see it. How does it impact your business? Also, what are the risks to your business? You know, are you gonna see certain technologies, certain hardware, move away from those that you traditionally service, in a way that Stripe or otherwise? Not really sure how to aim for that.
Yeah, thanks for the question. As we look at the CPI hardware business, we think that entire business, all the segments, gaming, retail, financial services, all mixed together, it's kind of low single-digit growth over the next couple of years. We think that that's durable, and it's a combination of equipment refresh cycles that are happening in the field, so in the gaming space and the retail space. All of these equipment that have been deployed in the past five or six years, they start to come up on a natural refresh cycle, we think the uplift from the U.S. new series currency upgrade factors into that as well in financial services, in retail, and in gaming. When you look at it all together, it kinda mixes to a low single-digit growth trajectory over the next couple of years.
Any more questions? Okay. That wraps up our first of our two Q&A sessions. At this time, we're gonna take a short break. We'll resume in approximately 15 minutes. Thank you.
Thank you.
...
Well, good morning again, and welcome back. We'll wait just a few more seconds, and we'll get started. All right, well, let's get started with the second half of our program this morning. Again, thank you all for coming, and for those online, thank you for rejoining after our break. I'd like to go ahead and move to our next section, which is focused on how we are building on our leadership positions with programmatic M&A. Specifically, I'm going to focus on what we've accomplished in our first three years, how Antares Vision accelerates our strategy, and how we are going to continue creating value with our M&A priorities. Since the launch of the company, we focused on building a leadership position in authentication technologies, expanding into higher growth adjacent markets, then enhanced the resiliency of our portfolio.
Secondly, with the acquisition of Antares Vision, we're adding market-leading detection, inspection, and traceability technologies, while also expanding our reach into the life sciences and food and beverage markets. As we move forward, we have the funnel to continue programmatic M&A, funded by strong free cash flow and a very solid balance sheet. Our pace is intentional, and our M&A framework is disciplined to ensure we are creating shareholder value over the long term. Now, over the past, really, 2 years, we've executed our strategy with 4 acquisitions, adding technology capabilities and expanding our end market reach, with each acquisition having clear synergies to deliver value creation for our shareholders. We started with OpSec in May of 2024 as our first transaction to expand into the brand authentication market. Shortly thereafter, we added TruTag's novel covert authentication technology to our product lines.
In May of last year, we completed the acquisition of De La Rue's authentication business, merging it with OpSec to create the new Crane Authentication. As Sam mentioned earlier this morning, we're incredibly excited about the growth opportunities for this business and the value we've created through the realization of our synergies. Finally, in September, we announced our intention to acquire Antares Vision, the next key milestone in executing our strategy. Our progression over these past 3 years has been very deliberate. It's been systematic, utilizing our disciplined M&A framework to expand our addressable market, build clear leadership positions, and create a more resilient portfolio. We started the company from a position of strength with Crane Currency and CPI, both leaders in their respective industries, as you heard earlier this morning, playing in the roughly $7 billion currency and payment equipment and services market.
Next, we took actions to expand our reach to the approximately $3 billion product authentication and identity solutions markets through the formation of Crane Authentication. Most recently, with the announcement to acquire Antares Vision, we've expanded our addressable market, an additional $3 billion, focused on supply chain assurance technologies for life sciences and food and beverage. I'd like to take a moment now to dive a little bit deeper into Antares Vision and walk through why we're so excited to welcome Antares into the Crane NXT family. Antares Vision provides advanced detection and inspection equipment, field service and remote services, and track and trace software that ensures the quality and traceability of products from manufacturing through distribution to consumers.
Its core markets are life science and food and beverage, with sales coming primarily from the Americas and Western Europe, with a growing list of customers in the emerging markets. What makes Antares very special and compelling as part of Crane NXT is its exposure to these higher growth markets and its position as a fully integrated provider of technologies into life sciences and food and beverage. Specifically, in life sciences, the market is growing due to a variety of factors. These include the reshoring of manufacturing and the rise of complex biologics, requiring more sophisticated packaging and transport. In the food and beverage market, packaging continues to evolve to more complex materials and shapes, while at the same time, safety and quality expectations continue to rise.
Finally, track and trace regulations for pharma products continue to grow in the world, and this is really led by adoption here in the United States and in the EU. These also include increasing requirements for batch-level traceability for food, slated to broaden here in the U.S. by 2028. As we look at this competitive set, it's composed of several companies, most focused in their specific products or defined market niche. A clear advantage of Antares Vision is its ability to span the markets and core technologies, providing the ability for customers to harmonize on the equipment and software from a single global supplier. Combined with the underlying market growth drivers, these advantages provide a clear rationale to why Antares wins.
First, increased counterfeiting continues to require companies to put an emphasis on product integrity in pharmaceutical and food and beverage markets, elevating demand for authentication, inspection, and serialization. Secondly, governments are requiring the digitization of supply chains to ensure traceability from manufacturer through to the pharmacies where consumer pharmaceuticals are distributed. Third, the growth occurring in emerging markets is accelerating the need for Antares products as consumption increases and the need for the quality assurance in those markets grows. Antares brings leading detection and inspection equipment, the DIAMIND Traceability platform , and established customers, amplified by Crane and NXT's commercial reach and technology offerings. As we discussed during a recent earnings call, we're on track with the next steps to acquire the company. As a reminder, in Q4 of 2025, we acquired approximately 32% of Antares Vision, funded via a euro-denominated term loan.
We received regulatory approval in early February for the next step of the process. We launched a mandatory public tender offer on February 16th to all existing shareholders. We expect this process to be completed by the end of March, at which point we will consolidate the results of Antares Vision into Crane NXT. In the final step of the process, we intend to take the company private, which should conclude sometime in mid-2026. Our integration planning is well underway. The teams are working very well together. I'm excited for everyone here today, in particular, to be able to see some of the Antares products on display at our innovation showcase later this afternoon. Please have a look at those products and interface with the team. I know they're excited to show you the wonderful technology that exists in the portfolio.
Antares aligns very well with our disciplined M&A framework, it's the same framework that we will continue to use going forward. As you see on this slide, we first start with looking at the market and particular segments focused on authentication and traceability technologies that have growth tailwinds and are fragmented with multiple competitors. Second, we dive deeper into the specific companies that are category leaders, possessing a moat around their business through either differentiated technology or channels. Third, for any transaction, we must have high confidence in our path to value creation, including clear synergies with Crane NXT, where CBS can expand our margins and accelerate growth. Leveraging this framework, we see several areas to build on our leadership positions through a series of multiple smaller acquisitions with revenue in the range of $100 million-$500 million.
This is a repeatable process that we call programmatic M&A, resulting in acquisitions that are meaningful to the sales and profitability of Crane NXT and are also actionable based on our balance sheet capacity. As shown on this next slide, we see multiple areas to expand our portfolio and build on our leadership positions. These include advanced security features and currency, brand protection, and government solutions, including additional expansion into emerging markets and new verticals. Identity verification is another area where we play today with a fragmented set of competitors, and this is an area where we can further build a leadership position based on the foundation of our differentiated security technology. Finally, with Antares Vision, we have new opportunities to build upon our capabilities in supply chain assurance and software, detection and inspection equipment, all in the life sciences and food and beverage end markets.
As we've shown over the past two years, this strategy is actionable. We have the M&A pipeline in place. We have due diligence and integration expertise in our organization and a balance sheet capacity in place to execute this strategy. As I mentioned earlier, our immediate focus here in 2026 is to successfully close and integrate Antares Vision into Crane NXT. Once the transaction is fully complete, our net leverage will be approximately 2.9 times. We continue to actively cultivate our M&A pipeline and will be likely ready for our next potential acquisition in 2027. Going forward, we'll be targeting approximately one to two transactions per year while keeping our net leverage below 3 times. Wrapping up this section, I want to return to where I started. First, over the past three years, we've built market-leading positions in authentication technologies.
Second, we're focused on building upon these leadership positions, and we're excited by the additional technology and capabilities that Antares Vision brings to Crane NXT. Third, we have a strong pipeline in place and capacity to continue on our journey of programmatic M&A over the coming years. I'm proud of what we've accomplished over these past three years in expanding the portfolio, and I'm excited about the future ahead, driving meaningful shareholder value creation with this strategy. With that, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Christina to discuss our financial targets going forward. Christina?
Good morning. Thank you, Aaron, and hello to everyone here today and on our webcast. I'm very happy to be here today and excited to share more about our financial performance and our outlook for the future, which provides a compelling investment thesis. Today, I'll discuss our strong performance since the separation. We've delivered durable sales growth, sustained high margins, and robust free cash flow as we've executed M&A into higher growth end markets. I'll also review our capital allocation priorities. We follow a disciplined approach to capital allocation, and we're prioritizing organic growth and strategic M&A to strengthen our leadership positions and maximize shareholder returns. Additionally, I'll provide a bridge to our 2028 sales and EBITDA targets.
We have a clear path to margin expansion in the core, including in SAT, where we are accelerating the realization of synergies in our authentication business, and in CPI, where we're driving margin accretion through productivity initiatives using CBS. Crane NXT is a resilient business with strong financial performance. Over the past 3 years, we've achieved total sales growth of approximately 9% and core sales growth of approximately 4%. We're proud of this durable sales growth as we navigated a dynamic environment post-COVID and through other macro uncertainties. Most notably, we've had significant growth in our international currency business, where demand exceeds our expectations, and we're making investments to drive the decade-long growth cycle that Sam described earlier. Along with mid-single-digit core sales growth during the last 3 years, we achieved an average adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 26%, including the expected impact of acquisitions.
On a core basis, average adjusted EBITDA was approximately 27%, reflecting disciplined operating performance in CPI, where we ended 2025 with operating profit margin above 32%. Moving to free cash flow, our businesses generate substantial free cash flow, and our annual conversion ratio has been just under 100%. This sustainable performance is a result of our disciplined operating cadence and our focus on working capital management. Overall, Crane NXT is a durable and resilient business, and we feel confident in our ability to accelerate growth. We maintain a disciplined capital allocation strategy and are focused on three areas to optimize our portfolio and maximize shareholder return. First, we're investing to accelerate organic growth. As Sam discussed earlier, we'll increase our CapEx spend in currency over the next 2 years to build 2 new micro-optics production lines.
These investments will enable us to increase capacity to deliver sustainable mid-single-digit sales growth. We'll also continue to invest in new technologies in Crane Authentication and in CPI. Altogether, we expect to maintain CapEx spend of approximately 3%-5% of NXT sales, balancing investments in growth with sustaining activities. Second, we're building our leadership positions through disciplined M&A. As Aaron discussed, we've expanded our portfolio into higher growth end markets, and Antares Vision will add further capabilities and new end markets to our mix. We have approximately $1 billion of available capital to deploy over the next 3 years, and we expect most of this capital will go toward M&A. Third, we'll return cash to our shareholders. We'll continue to pay a competitive dividend with a target payout ratio of approximately 15% of adjusted free cash flow, and we will opportunistically repurchase shares.
We have a strong balance sheet with substantial flexibility and capacity for capital deployment. Approximately half of our outstanding debt is long-term and at attractive fixed rates. We've effectively managed our net leverage over the past 3 years, increasing net leverage for M&A. Using our strong free cash flow to pay down debt and maintain net leverage of less than 3 times. As Aaron Saak discussed earlier, after the close of the Antares Vision transaction, we expect net leverage will be approximately 2.9 times. We expect that ratio to be approximately 2.3 times at the end of 2026. We have an outstanding balance sheet with very strong liquidity. Our exceptional cash generation will provide us with ample capacity for future M&A. Looking ahead, we're well-positioned to accelerate organic growth.
In SAT, we expect mid-single-digit plus growth over the next 3 years, driven by the US currency refresh, further expansion of our market share in international currency, and growth in emerging markets in authentication. In CPI, we expect low single-digit growth, driven by the refresh of payment hardware to accommodate the new US currency and continued expansion of our service business into adjacent markets. In total, we expect Crane NXT to have sustainable mid-single-digit organic sales growth. With the strength of our core business and capacity from our strong free cash flow and capital structure, we've developed a roadmap to grow Crane NXT to approximately two and a half billion USD by 2028. We'll achieve this goal by building off the secular tailwinds we discussed today, including increased counterfeiting, digitization of the supply chain, and emerging market growth.
Let me take you through our sales bridge, starting with $1.7 billion in sales in 2025. First, we expect the underlying markets to grow in the mid-single digits, generating approximately $190 million of revenue. Next, we expect to close the Antares Vision transaction in mid-2026, and it's expected to grow in the mid-single digits, generating revenue of approximately $260 million by 2028. We also have approximately $40 million of sales from De La Rue that is non-core in 2026. This totals approximately $300 million from current M&A. Finally, we'll deploy capital through our disciplined M&A framework, and we expect to add approximately $350 million in sales to the company by 2028 through future acquisitions. Overall, we're targeting approximately 15% sales growth CAGR through 2028.
This exciting growth strategy presents a significant opportunity for shareholder value creation. Let's talk now about margin expansion. We ended 2025 with EBITDA of approximately $400 million or approximately 24% EBITDA margin. We expect mid-single-digit growth in the core, which will generate approximately $85 million of EBITDA at a margin of approximately 26%. Antares Vision will add approximately $260 million in revenue growth with approximately 15% margin to start, and we expect to improve that margin to approximately 20% in 2028 through the deployment of CBS. This, along with the EBITDA contribution from De La Rue, will add approximately $55 million in EBITDA related to current M&A. Finally, we expect to do one to two future M&A transactions, which will add approximately $350 million in revenue with approximately $60 million in EBITDA or a 15% EBITDA margin.
As we expected, the acquisitions we're adding to the portfolio come in at a lower margin, which is one of the reasons why their valuations are so attractive. We have high confidence in our ability to drive operational synergies through 80/20 and other CBS principles, as we're doing this year in our authentication business. Putting this all together, we expect EBITDA of approximately $600 million in 2028, which is a 15% CAGR and reflects a margin of approximately 24%, including the acquired companies. We expect core EBITDA margin of approximately 26% in 2028, with approximately 150 basis points of segment margin expansion through 2028. We have a clear path to margin expansion in the core, bolstered by the synergies we're driving in our authentication business and productivity initiatives.
We have compelling targets for growth with clear opportunity for shareholder value creation. We expect a mid-single-digit organic sales growth over the next 3 years, augmented with M&A. We expect a mid-20s% adjusted EBITDA margin in 2028, with margin expansion in the core partially offset by the expected impact of acquisitions. We expect free cash flow conversion to continue to be in the range of 90%-110%. I'd like to now reaffirm our 2026 financial guidance. We are confident in our 2026 guidance of 4%-6% sales growth and approximately 25% adjusted EBITDA margin. In CPI, we expect to be flat year-over-year, reflecting mid-single-digit growth in service, where we're expanding our offerings, offset by approximately flat revenue year-over-year in our hardware businesses and a low single-digit decline in vending.
In SAT, we expect high single-digit sales growth, driven by high single-digit sales growth in U.S. currency from a favorable mix of banknote demand and a low single-digit growth in international currency, even with a very tough comparison to a strong 2025. In Crane Authentication, we expect continued mid-single-digit growth, including a full year contribution from De La Rue. We expect adjusted segment EBITDA margin to be approximately 28%. This reflects continued high profitability in CPI and the benefit of synergy realization in Crane Authentication, partially offset by the actions we're taking to expand capacity to meet international currency demand. In total, we expect to deliver full-year adjusted EPS in the range of $4.10-$4.40, and we expect adjusted free cash flow conversion in the range of approximately 90%-110%.
In summary, we're well-positioned to accelerate growth. This is a durable and resilient business with a track record of delivering high margin and strong free cash flow. We are prioritizing investments in organic growth and M&A to strengthen our leadership positions and maximize shareholder return. We have a clear path to core margin expansion and accelerating the realization of acquisition synergies and driving productivity initiatives through CBS. I'm excited for our future growth opportunities that will provide significant value creation for our shareholders. Thank you for your time today, and we'll now pause to begin our second Q&A session, followed by Aaron's closing remarks.
Thanks, Christina. At this time, we're going to move it to our second Q&A session. As a reminder, if you have a question, please raise your hand, and a microphone will be brought to you. Please stand and state your name and the name of your firm before asking the question. This session will focus on questions related to the second half of today's presentations. Of course, the entire team is on stage and available for any broader questions as well. With that, I'm glad to welcome Aaron, Christina, Sam, and Michael back to the stage. Let's take our first question.
Hi. Bob Labick with CJS Securities. Thank you for the presentation, Christina. I just wanted to dig down a little further on margins. We have, you know, strong margin, I think it was 600 basis point margin expansion out of SAT, and I was hoping you could kind of walk through the components. I know there's, you know, authentication synergies. There's, you know, I guess, getting back to previous. Anyway, help us walk through that 600 basis points from this year or 2026 to 2028 margin expansion, please.
Yeah, thanks for that question, Bob. I think first I'd just like to, you know, acknowledge our team, who's done a fantastic job post the integration of both OpSec and De La Rue to form Crane Authentication, and really set us up for success in driving these synergies, which we had identified at the time of acquisition. As you know, we've taken significant action in 2025 in order to improve the profitability of the authentication businesses, and Sam discussed this a little bit earlier in the presentation. You know, De La Rue closed in the second quarter of 2025.
Starting in the back half of 2025, we began those actions. Now we'll begin to see the benefit in 2026, and we'll exit 2026 with approximately 20% margin in Authentication, which is really ahead of schedule from where we planned to be. We'll see approximately $20 million of synergy realization in 2026. Then over the next, you know, two years, you'll continue to see the benefit of those synergies and additional CBS actions that we're taking to drive productivity, and that's really what's going to drive Authentication to be a consistently low 20s% EBITDA margin part of our portfolio.
Just, I mean, like, but just in a continuation, just for a full SAT, right? There's still, like, currency, I think, is depressed right now.
Dual-Optic
... capacity expansion. How does that play into that full 600 basis?
Yeah. That 600 basis points was only related to authentication, but you're exactly right. We're investing now, as you know, in the future demand for Crane Currency, particularly the international currency business. Those costs are going to be primarily in the first part of the year, particularly in Q1. You'll see a lower margin in Q1, and then an improving margin for SAT as the year progresses.
Another stupid question. I learned how to ask these type of questions when I was growing up, you know. When you go from $400 million to the $600 million of EBITDA in 2028, I'm assuming that half of that is basically M&A or some good proportion of it is M&A. Do you sort of have the targets in mind, and are you having the conversations already? What gives you the conviction of getting to that? Because that when you start throwing out these type of numbers, I mean, I hate to say it, I'm going to be bothering you.
Yeah.
I'm sure other people will bother you, too.
Yeah.
What gives you that sort of that texture of...
Yeah
quantifying that?
No, I'll take that. As Christina walked through on the walk, there's the last bucket that is future M&A, about $350 million in the top line that's flowing through at about a 15% adjusted EBITDA. What I would point to is that's what we've outlined here is exactly what we've done during our first three years as Crane NXT. It's exactly what we've done. We, in fact, we're ahead of that plan if you add in Antares Vision, adding on almost $400 million of M&A in our first three years since we started actually doing M&A in the company. We're simply laying out a plan to continue to do what we've already done over the next three years, and that comes from cultivating a funnel that takes quite a long time.
You know, we'll be meeting and visiting with the Antares Vision team here later today. As I've said to many of you, that has been over a two-year process of cultivating Antares Vision. The same is true of OpSec and De La Rue. None of these three larger deals for us that we've done have been processes. They've been going out, talking about our purpose, talking about the values of Crane NXT, where we want to take the company, and create this true leader in authentication and traceability technologies. Talking to entrepreneurs who have had incredibly successful companies, or private equity firms, as the case was in OpSec, that were looking for the next step of their journey, and building a relationship of trust that ultimately led to a bilateral discussion on a transaction.
I have incredibly high confidence, given the state of our funnel, given the state of our conversations with others in the industry, that the number we put out is incredibly achievable and is commensurate with programmatic M&A. A healthy diet, as I like to say, of 1 to 2 acquisitions a year that we can absorb, we can drive CBS and improve those EBITDA margins, exactly like you've seen us do with now Crane Authentication, and as we're embarking on with high confidence with Antares Vision. The goal is actually just to continue what we've been doing at the same pace.
Aaron, the only issue I have with that, it looks like, it just looks like the multiple that your own shares are trading at are similar to the multiple ranges you're paying for acquisitions. In that same 10 times zone.
That's right. That's right.
You're paying roughly whatever it is. It looks like you were putting up multiples for what you paid for things, so there isn't, like, a necessarily an arbitrage. It looks like the game is to... I mean, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but it looks like what you're doing is you believe that one and one is three.
Well, I think if you so your point is very well taken, by the way, of as you look at where we've acquired companies, with our synergies, we're getting them at about 10 times EV/EBITDA.
Yeah.
Now, our comp set, if you look at where we're positioning the company with those acquisitions, some of the logos on that page would suggest we have an opportunity for significant multiple expansion, simply if we start to trade at the level of the peers in our comp set. I would argue that if you looked at our core financials, 4% underlying core organic growth, 100% free cash flow conversion, adjusted EBITDA in the range of the mid-20s, that compared to other people that would be in a comp set from different, certainly sales side or buy side folks, we're at a very attractive multiple.
Our belief is that as we expand the portfolio and move, and you see the growth that we're showing here and we're committing to, that we have a fantastic opportunity for multiple expansion.
You know, it just looks like in summary, just the last point I'd make, it looks like in summary, what you're really arguing is if you scale up the company, you're gonna become more diversified and more relevant. That's your argument.
Well, I may take pause there. I think we're very relevant in.
No, I mean.
markets we play in.
That's not the right word. That's not the right word.
Yeah, yeah.
Apologies.
I understand your point, though. Yeah, I think there's some Joking aside, there's some real advantages to scale in this market, in consolidating a fragmented market, in keeping your leverage below 3 and deploying our operating discipline to improve margins. I think you can look at a lot of true leaders over the last 20, 30 years that have been doing that and compounding value. You know, we're arguably starting our second inning.
Mm-hmm
... to use, Major League Baseball, one of our good customer analogy, of where we're at in that journey of value creation in Crane NXT. I'm highly confident that we'll get there.
Thanks. It's Matt again with D.A. Davidson. Just real quick, Aaron, you were mentioning during the Antares Vision discussion, batch-level traceability in the U.S. by 2028. How much do known regulations, either in process of being rolled out or to be rolled out in the future, how much can that add to the TAM of that business, looking out to, pick a year, 2028, 2030?
Yeah. Thanks for that, Matt. Our underlying growth assumptions for Antares are assuming that primarily the regulations that are in place or we know with high certainty are coming. You can look at some of the disclosures from Antares over the last year, of particularly growth coming in emerging markets where those regulations are coming in, and Antares is winning with its suite of software and hardware combinations. Some of those other regulations, such as the U.S., there's some others coming, are certainly additional tailwinds to the market that we want to be prudent and not necessarily include in the outlook for the next three years.
I'm just curious. This is Dave Nee with Conestoga. Curious where you have nice catalysts on both sides of the business, especially with the U.S. currency refresh. Maybe where you've baked in conservatism? Or maybe what could, you know, what are the risks as we look forward? Does vending come back? Or maybe highlight where you baked in more conservatism in the guide for 2028.
You wanna take that, Christina?
I mean, we took a thanks for that. Thanks for that, Dave Nee. We took a prudent approach to setting our guidance. We feel confident in 4%-6% sales growth and adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 25%. You know, certainly, if there were a change in some of the end markets, and Michael Mahan can speak to this, you know, there's potential there for to be on the higher end of our guidance, for example. Right now, we believe that the approach we took to setting the guidance was prudent.
I think, Dave Nee, you could probably go through each of the businesses 'cause they're unique, as you've seen. Some commonalities, you take international currency, the win rate continues. If it continues or accelerates, that's a positive tailwind. You can see the pipelines there. Again, we're being prudent in the guide on our win rate. You take CPI, could the hardware refresh go a little faster? Could tariffs benefit us and not become the headwind it was in 25 and maybe flip to, you know, a relief? That would benefit us. Of course, you take a look at authentication, and you see, with some of the large global brands we have coming online, that typically opens up more opportunities with other brands when you have these truly marquee brands using your technology.
I think you can go through every one of the businesses in the portfolio, and you can point to some areas where you could argue, if the winds blow in the right direction, it's actually better.
I have an online question, a financial question for Christina. Would you ever flex up to over 3 times net leverage for the right deal, and how far would you go?
Well, I'll start that one, but I'm also gonna maybe pass to Aaron, 'cause I'm sure you're gonna wanna comment on that as well. You know, we're comfortable keeping that leverage below 3 times, and we feel confident at that rate that we can use our very strong free cash flow to pay that down within 12-18 months of an acquisition, and then prepare to do the rest of our organic investment and M&A as part of our capital allocation strategy. Our comfortable range is below 3 times.
I would just add, it's the core of our philosophy, and we demonstrated that over the last three years to make sure we're very deliberate, methodical in how we're expanding the portfolio, keeping the balance sheet fortified, not looking for large, transformative, type of acquisitions, but building one adjacency at a time. What's occurring when you do that, as you saw, I think, in the diagram that I showed of the TAM expanding, is by nature of that, you have more adjacencies to go after that actually add to the M&A opportunities and add to niche areas where you can invest, and that's what we're seeing.
Back to the question on our M&A funnel, of why it's stronger now than it's ever been, because we've actually almost doubled the TAM of the company in the last three years, and we're finding more opportunities with wide moats, niche-differentiated technologies that we can bring in to the portfolio. It's very philosophical as much as it is mathematical about the leverage of the balance sheet.
Another online question, related to M&A: Will you be doing any M&A in CPI?
Well, I think CPI, as Michael alluded to, sits in the portfolio as a very important part of Crane NXT due to its high margins and strong free cash flow. You know, I really compliment the entire CPI team through the last few years of maintaining these margins that I think are world-class, through the application of CBS. If there is an area, as we've always talked about and as Michael alluded to, services is a very interesting place for us to continue to grow. We're investing in that in organically. Certainly, if there was a way that M&A could be an accelerator to that strategy, we could always look at that. That's probably the one area we'd be thinking about.
Hello. Hi, it's Ryan Thorpe again. You mentioned earlier that you didn't feel you were getting the multiple that you deserved. Generally, most CEOs I've spoken to feel that way. I think there's an argument for it here. I'm curious, imagine you do what you say you wanna do over the next two years, so you're 2028, what companies would you say, they can be companies that do exactly what you do or companies that you're trying to be like, who should we be comparing you to? What are the metrics that you feel justify that comparison? You don't have to say what multiples they get. We can look that up on our own, I'm curious, you know, if this all goes right, who are we putting you in the same league as?
Yeah. Hey, thanks, Ryan. I share that strong belief that we are underrepresented in the multiple category. It's in part, Ryan, I'll answer the question with some of the slides that we presented, which showed competitors that we see in each of these markets, and I think you can take two approaches here. One is you can look at a sum of the parts of these businesses against their competitors, and you can look at some of those competitor logos and where they're trading, and I think you'll find out that to the math I know you've run, that we're at an undervaluation versus those.
I think the second approach you can take is look at the mid-cap type in premier industrials, erase the names, look at our financials, look at the financials we've just committed to that Christina put up, core mid-single-digit growth, 15% growth CAGR over the next 3 years. Adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-20% range, growing at 15%, 100% free cash flow. You look at those mid-cap industrial techs that have those type of financials, by the way, you won't find many. There's one called Crane NXT that I'm particularly excited about. That will put you at a, you know, at a multiple that's getting closer to starting in the high teens and twos, quite frankly.
I strongly believe, our conviction is, we've moved this portfolio into a different set of end markets than when many of us were talking three years ago. That's resilient, it's durable, wide moats continue with niche positions and tailwinds that are very credible. You know, that should put us in the category that we're alluding to.
Hey, it's Rand Gesing from Neuberger Berman. On CPI, it's actually a first half question, I hope I don't get in trouble. In the CPI slides, you talk about the margin improvement, very modest. I mean, the margins are great there, which is interesting, I would've thought with the mix around services, which I'm assuming is the highest margin, obviously, CBS and maybe the currency refresh, you would have a mix benefit, which would give you some leverage to get more than 100 basis points. Maybe there's something going on with hardware, or there's something sort of on a leaky boat type of a scenario. Why aren't you getting more oomph out of the segment from those pretty positive drivers?
I'll take it. Thank you for the question. I think when we look at CPI over the next couple of years, and you break it down to kind of the 3 constituent parts, we think hardware is a low single-digit grower. It's got the tailwind from the currency refresh in there, and we think that'll enable us to be able to go out there, leverage our very sticky relationships with customers, make sure that we continue to be their premier service provider, and get the same kind of attractive margins that we've been able to generate in that business for years. In the service business, because of the currency refresh, but also just structurally, what's going on in what I would call the broader retail automation market, we think that's very naturally a mid-single-digit grower.
As you see everywhere you go, there's just more and more automation out in the field, and it needs field service and repair. We become kind of a natural answer for that because we have great density and footprint all over the U.S. Big customers, big logos come to us because we can solve their problem across a variety of geographies. We think using CBS, we can continue to run that business very profitably. Lastly, in the vending business, I think last year, tariffs pushed out some of the buying behavior. As we look forward, we think that comes back, and that's also a low single-digit grower, where we very effectively deployed CBS last year to exit at a much better margin rate than we started, and we think that continues.
The three of them together, I think, lead us to this kind of 30 to 50 basis points of margin expansion, very predictably, year-over-year, in a low single-digit growth market with greater than 100% free cash flow, and we feel really good about that.
Hey there, Ian Zaffino at Oppenheimer. Thanks for taking all the questions. I just want to ask on the authentication piece with identification solutions and De La Rue acquisition that you did, that's growing pretty nicely. Maybe if you could talk about what's driving that? Is there, like, a certain refresh cycle on the passport side? You know, talk a little bit about the ID, just growth internationally or in the US here. Thanks.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the question. Yeah, we feel very positive about the identity and verification part of Crane Authentication. There's a general global growth in the number of people traveling, and a very significant trend in the market about the need to upgrade anti-counterfeit technology solutions. I mentioned in my prepared remarks the growth of the polycarbonate data pages and the extension of that technology across different passports around the world. That's one area of expertise and specialism within the Crane Authentication business. In fact, in the innovation showcase after this plenary session, I'd be delighted to show you a couple of the unique security technologies that we've got embedded in that type of technology. We feel very good about the growth of the market.
Just as importantly, we feel very good about the unique, differentiated security technologies we've got, in that area.
One more question from online: What do you think your exposure to cash will be in about five years?
Why don't I take that? I think it may even go to one of Ryan's points weaved in to how the company has been viewed from the beginning of Crane NXT to where we're at today. If you look at where we started, for those who were in the room 3 years ago at our first Investor Day, our exposure to cash was almost 85% of the portfolio. Today, or let me say, at the close of Antares Vision, we're gonna be approximately 60%. The reason actually that that's still above 50 is simply due to the fantastic growth we've had in our international currency business, which we're excited about.
As you look at that extra three hundred or the planned $350 million revenue and the deployment of M&A, you can see by the 2028 period, we will exit with far less than 50% of the portfolio exposed to cash-in markets, and that's the journey we're on. Diversifying into markets that leverage our proprietary technology all around authentication and traceability, while still maintaining our leadership positions in the core currency and CPI businesses. Even in that case, diversifying CPI, particularly in services, into new areas that actually don't have exposure to the cash-in markets. That's the trajectory we've already. That's the trajectory we're on.
It's what we've already executed, it's what we said we were going to do, and I would argue it's exactly what we've done over these last three years, and as we come to you in 2028, I will expect that to be well below 50%.
Any final questions? Okay. Well, that wraps up our second Q&A session. I'd like to welcome Aaron back to the podium for his closing remarks.
All right. Thank you again very much for those questions, both here in the room and online, and for spending your time with us this morning. I do want to take a few moments, as Matt alluded to, just to close out our session before we head to the innovation showcase and to lunch. We set out this morning to give you a clear view of Crane NXT, of who we are, where we're going, and our strategy to create shareholder value over the long term. I hope you leave this morning with the same conviction that I have, that Crane NXT is a technology leader with momentum, discipline, and a clear plan to win. Our solutions are helping customers protect identities and products and ensure the quality, authenticity, and traceability of products across an increasingly complex supply chain.
As I mentioned earlier today, we're focused on three key priorities: First, accelerating organic growth by investing in differentiated technology and capabilities. We're directing capital and talent to the innovations that extend our edge in authentication and traceability, where our intellectual property, consumer and customer expertise, and installed base compound our advantage over time. Second, we're building on our leadership positions, applying our disciplined capital allocation framework to pursue M&A that strengthens our focus in authentication and traceability technologies and generates attractive returns. Third, we're driving operational excellence through the Crane Business System. CBS is our operating foundation and core to our culture. We're deploying it across the portfolio to expand margins, enhance quality, and convert our earnings to cash. The portfolio is increasingly integrated and aligned to growing markets with sustainable tailwinds.
Our businesses provide advanced technologies that prevent counterfeiting of products and identities and enable end-to-end product integrity and traceability, capabilities that matter more each year as regulations increase, counterfeiting risks evolve, and customers and their consumers want confidence in the authenticity of their products that they purchase. As we move forward, we're focused on delivering our 2028 targets. We're proud of the progress that we've made and very optimistic about the opportunity ahead. We're building a technology-driven leader with durable advantages, strong cash generation, and a very clear roadmap for long-term value creation. As we execute this plan, I'm confident that we will deliver strong returns for our shareholders for the long term. In closing, I'd like to express my very sincere thank you to all of our presenters and to the many team members here who made today possible.
For those here in person, please join us outside for the innovation showcase and lunch. You'll have the chance to see many of the innovations and products we talked about today and meet more of our Crane NXT team members, who are anxious and excited to share what they do with you. Thank you again for your time, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.