Hello, welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Crane NXT. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Mr. Stroup, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Crane NXT.
The meeting will please come to order. Good morning. My name is John Stroup, I am the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Crane NXT. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I welcome you to the 2026 Crane NXT Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Before we begin the meeting, I would like to announce my fellow Board Members, all of whom are in attendance today via telephone. We welcome Jeffrey Benck, Michael Dinkins, William Grogan, Sandra Joyce, Cristen Kogl, Ellen McClain, David Petratis, Aaron Saak, and James Tullis.
I will now ask the Meeting Secretary, Paul Igoe, to announce the company participants and other invited attendees.
Mr. Chairman, company participants are Aaron Saak, President and CEO, Christina Cristiano, Senior Vice President and CFO, Kim DiMaurizio, Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer, Matt Roache, Vice President, Investor Relations, and Justine Bensussen, Assistant General Counsel. Also in attendance are representatives from Deloitte & Touche LLP, the company's independent auditors, and Jenna Bentley of CT Hagberg, acting as Inspector of Elections.
Thank you, Mr. Igoe. The meeting agenda, annual report, and proxy statement, procedures, and technical support information are available on the virtual meeting platform. This meeting will be conducted in accordance with the procedures outlined in these documents, and we encourage our stockholders to review them. Stockholders may submit questions in writing that relate to the proposals presented at this meeting at any time during this meeting on the virtual meeting platform. We will respond to appropriate questions at the end of this meeting. We will first conduct the formal business of the meeting, and then we will respond to any appropriate questions.
After the close of the formal portion of this meeting, our CEO, Mr. Saak, will review the company's performance in 2025 and outlook for 2026. Mr. Igoe will now give his report as to the notice of meeting, the solicitation of proxies, and the presence of quorum.
The Board of Directors established March 27th, 2026, as the record date for voting at the Annual Meeting of Stockholders. As of that date, a total of 57,537,288 shares of common stock were outstanding and entitled to vote. A list of stockholders of record as of that date, certified by our transfer agent, Computershare, has been on file at the offices of the company for the last 10 days, available for inspection by any stockholder during regular business hours. The notice of Annual Meeting of Stockholders and proxy materials were mailed or made available beginning on April 7th, 2026, to stockholders of record as of the record date. An affidavit of mailing of the notice and other company proxy materials has been received by the secretary.
The Board of Directors has received from stockholders proxies for more than 50% of the outstanding shares entitled to vote. This constitutes a quorum sufficient to convene the 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Polls will remain open during the meeting today, May 21st, 2026, for each of the matters to be voted upon by the stockholders in attendance at this meeting until announced closed by the chairman at the conclusion of voting on all matters on the agenda.
Jenna Bentley of CT Hagberg has been appointed as Inspector of Elections. She is present today and reports that as specified in the company's proxy statement dated April 7th, 2026, and as required by law, proxy representatives, Messrs. Saak and Igoe, have cast their ballot in accordance with the instructions on the proxy cards received. I will now recite the three proposals that are outlined in the proxy statement.
Proposal 1, the stockholders have been asked to vote on each of the following nine nominees for director: Jeffrey Benck, Michael Dinkins, William Grogan, Sandra Joyce, Cristen Kogl, David Petratis, Aaron Saak, and John Stroup. Proposal 2, the stockholders have been asked to ratify the selection by the audit committee of Deloitte & Touche LLP as independent auditors of the company for the current fiscal year. Proposal 3, the stockholders have been asked to vote on a proposal to approve by a non-binding advisory vote the compensation paid by the company to its named executive officers.
Thank you, Mr. Igoe. As there were no other nominations for directors or proposals received in accordance with the company's bylaws, I declare the nominations closed. Any stockholder has not voted or who wishes to change his or her vote may do so now by following the instructions provided on the virtual meeting platform. Stockholders who have submitted proxies or who have previously voted via the internet or by phone and do not wish to change their vote, you do not need to take any further action. Your votes will be counted automatically. The polls are now closed.
The Inspector of Elections is now ready with the preliminary voting report. The company will file an 8-K with final results within four business days following the annual meeting.
Thank you, Mr. Igoe. Each member of the slate of directors nominated by the Board of Directors has been elected by a vote of at least 49 million shares voted in favor, representing at least 96% of the votes cast. The selection by the audit committee of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent auditors for the year 2025 has been ratified by a vote of at least 53 million shares voted in favor, representing at least 99% of the votes cast. The proposal to approve by a non-binding advisory vote the compensation paid by the company to its named executive officers has been approved by a vote of at least 50 million shares voted in favor, representing at least 98% of the votes cast. That concludes my report.
Thank you, Inspector. Mr. Roache, are there any questions submitted from stockholders?
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I would like to take this opportunity to thank James Tullis for his invaluable contributions to Crane NXT. After nearly 30 years of dedicated service on the board, today marks his final day as a director. We are grateful for his leadership, insight, and commitment over the years, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors. There being no further business, I declare the annual meeting closed.
I would now like to introduce Aaron Saak, President and CEO of Crane NXT, who will review the company's performance in 2025 and outlook for 2026.
Thank you, Mr. Stroup. Good morning and welcome to everyone joining our annual shareholder meeting. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that this presentation contains forward-looking statements, and although the company believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be attained. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements and to read our risk factors in our SEC filed financials. With that, let me move to the next slide. In 2025, we continued to evolve our portfolio and strengthened our position as a global leader in authentication and traceability technologies that secure, detect, and authenticate what matters most to our customers. I would like to thank our associates around the world for their hard work and what we've accomplished together in 2025.
We made significant progress expanding and diversifying our portfolio through disciplined M&A while continuing to invest in our core businesses and drive operational excellence through the Crane Business System. Underpinning this progress is our longstanding commitment to living our core values. Our financial performance was in line with our expectations. For the full year, sales increased by approximately 11% year-over-year to nearly $1.7 billion, with core sales growth of approximately 1%. Adjusted EBITDA margins were approximately 24%, and our strong free cash flow resulted in a conversion ratio of approximately 94% for the full year. Finally, we delivered our adjusted EPS of $4.06. We continue to build momentum in executing our strategy to accelerate organic growth, and I'd like to highlight a few of our key achievements in 2025.
We continue to win share with our leading technology, and we won a total of 20 new currency denominations specifying our proprietary micro-optic security technology. This result exceeded our initial target of 10-15 wins and is one reason why I'm so positive about the long-term outlook for our currency business. Also in 2025, we successfully completed the final equipment upgrades to support the launch of the new U.S. currency series. With the design and testing finalized, we're preparing for the release of the new series, which we expect to be announced in the near future. We also secured significant contract renewals in our Crane Authentication business across major customers, including a multi-year agreement with the National Football League and Major League Baseball to provide security technology for its consumer products.
We're confident that these partnerships, together with other contracts we have with some of the world's most recognized brands, will continue to drive growth. We also continue to build upon our market-leading positions in authentication and traceability technologies. In 2025, we further strengthened our leadership position in the global authentication market through the creation of Crane Authentication, combining OpSec Security and De La Rue Authentication into one integrated business. We made significant progress executing on our synergies, including 80/20 initiatives, which will drive significant margin accretion in the business in 2026. Finally, we announced the acquisition of Antares Vision, a global leader in providing advanced detection systems and track and trace software, expanding our presence in higher growth end markets, including life sciences and food and beverage.
We closed our initial equity investment in Antares Vision in the fourth quarter of 2025 and completed the acquisition at the end of the first quarter of 2026, ahead of our original schedule. As shown on slide four, Antares Vision now sits alongside our CPI business in our newly established Detection and Traceability Technology segment, or DTT. We see clear and actionable opportunities for operational synergies between Antares Vision and CPI, as both businesses are centered on equipment manufacturing, advanced detection system design, and field services. We're confident we can realize these synergies, leveraging our established integration and operational improvement playbook through the Crane Business System. DTT is also highly complementary to our existing Security and Authentication Technology segment, or SAT.
Put simply, DTT focuses on ensuring product quality, authenticity, and traceability across global supply chains, and SAT is focused on helping to prevent the counterfeiting of products and identities through our proprietary security technologies. Together, both segments position Crane NXT as a differentiated global leader across the full authentication and traceability value chain. Going forward, we will continue to actively cultivate our M&A pipeline to further expand and diversify the portfolio. A robust pipeline of strategic targets, coupled with our strong balance sheet and free cash flow generation, position us very well to continue to grow the business moving forward.
Now moving to our final slide. During the first quarter earnings call on May 7th, we updated our 2026 guidance to reflect the inclusion of Antares Vision. For the full year, we stated total sales growth of 15%-17%. We expect our full-year adjusted segment EBITDA margin to be approximately 27%. Finally, we maintained our full-year EPS guidance range of $4.10-$4.40. We expect the benefit of productivity initiatives in the core business and the EBITDA contribution for Antares Vision to offset the expected incremental interest expense from the acquisition.
To wrap up, we're continuing to execute our strategy of accelerating growth while maintaining strong margins and robust free cash flow. We're building momentum in our strategic growth areas and expanding our market-leading positions in authentication and traceability technologies. I believe we're well positioned to accelerate growth in 2026 and beyond and deliver significant value creation to our shareholders. Thank you again for your support and your time this morning.
Thank you. This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.