All right. It seems like we're getting our last cups of coffee here, so, we'll get going. I'm just gonna start with a brief legal disclaimer so we're all aware. A full disclaimer is posted on the screen behind me and the company's website, along with the meeting presentations. The information presented at this meeting may contain forward-looking statements based on the company's current expectations. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated. These statements should be considered in conjunction with the risks and uncertainties described in our filings with the SEC, including our most recently filed periodic reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and subsequent filings.
In addition to the results reported in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles included in this presentation, the company is providing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of such non-GAAP financial measures, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix to the presentation on the company's website. Going to start giving the last 5 seconds of a commercial where they go and report everything. Welcome to everybody to our 2026 Graham Holdings annual meeting. We'll start with the formal proceedings, then we'll go to some management commentary from there. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The meeting will please come to order. I'm Tim O'Shaughnessy, President and CEO of Graham Holdings Company. I will act as Chairman of the meeting.
To my right is Wally Cooney, SVP and CFO of the company, and Nicole Maddrey, our SVP and General Counsel and Secretary of the company, who will act as Secretary of the meeting. I'd like to welcome you all to the annual meeting of stockholders for 2026. Now I'll briefly describe what is on the program this morning. First, we will dispense with the technical part of the meeting, which involves such matters as the submission of documents and the determination of a quorum. After my remarks, we'll hear from Andy R osen, who will provide an update on Kaplan. We will proceed to the election of directors and the proposal to be voted on by the Class A shareholders to approve the 2025 compensation awarded to the named executive officers.
After that, the meeting will be open for your comments and questions. Before turning to the opening formalities of the meeting, I would like to introduce those nominees for election as a director who are present. Don Graham, Anne Mulcahy, Tony Allen, Danielle Conley, Chris Davis, Tom Gayner, Jack Markell, Rick Wagoner, Katharine Weymouth, and myself. Also present from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the company's independent registered public accounting firm, are Rob Glasgow and Celia Din. Will the secretary please present to the meeting all the supporting documents?
For the purposes of this meeting, I present affidavits of mailing of the notice of availability of proxy materials for the 2026 annual meeting of stockholders to each stockholder of record at the close of business on March 11, 2026, the record date for determining stockholders entitled to receive notice of and to vote at this meeting. The complete list of the holders of Class A and Class B common stock as of the close of business on March 11, which has been available for at least 10 days preceding this meeting. A copy of the certificate of incorporation and the bylaws of the company, and the minutes of the last annual meeting of the stockholders of the company held on May 6, 2025.
Elisa Zegarra and Elaine Wolff have been appointed to act as inspectors of votes at this meeting. I direct that an executed copy of their oath be filed with the records of the meeting. Will the secretary please ascertain that a quorum is present?
Mr. O'Shaughnessy, the inspectors of votes have canvassed the stockholders present in person or by proxy and have presented to me their first report, which shows that there are present in person or by proxy 27 stockholders holding 928,001 shares of Class A common stock of the company, which is 96.27% of the Class A common stock entitled to vote at this meeting, and not less than 2,625,155 shares of Class B common stock of the company, or 78% of the 3,385,088 shares entitled to vote at this meeting.
I direct that the first report of the inspectors of votes be filed with the records of the meeting. I declare that a quorum is present and that the meeting may proceed to the transaction of the business for which it has been called. As stated in the notice of the meeting, the purposes of the meeting are to elect the directors of the company with the Class A shareholders on an advisory basis to vote to approve the 2025 compensation awarded to named executive officers. To transact such other business as may properly come before the meeting or any adjournment thereof. Okay. I thought I would begin. Many of you may have seen that I'm walking a little different than normal. For those that haven't asked, and will after, I'll get this out of the way.
I crashed a mountain bike with my son, and I have an injured foot, which is better than the alternative, which was I presented the operating projections to Don, and I came out of the meeting with this. I'm glad it was the mountain biking injury. Good morning once again and welcome to the annual meeting of shareholders of Graham Holdings. We're delighted to have many of you in person and also on the audio stream. There are a bunch of members of management here as well, hopefully you've been able to introduce yourself, and they'll stick around for a bit after if you would like to go and chat at all. Our agenda for the content portion of the meeting will be as follows.
I'll provide a brief update on operations for 2025 and Q1 of 2026, as well as discuss the company's approach to AI. Andy Rosen will update you on Kaplan's operations with a focus on Kaplan International. We'll open up the floor for questions for as long as time allows. We were pleased with 2025 results and feel similarly about Q1 2026. For the quarter, total company revenue grew 6% over the prior year, with large gains in healthcare and manufacturing being modestly offset by declines at automotive and other businesses. Adjusted operating cash flow also grew in Q1 to $113 million, up 28% from the prior year. Improvements at education, broadcasting, manufacturing, and other businesses were partially offset by declines at healthcare and automotive.
With CapEx running slightly higher in Q1 of this year, adjusted free cash flow was just below that of adjusted operating cash flow, coming in at 24% growth over the prior year. Zooming out, the revenue of the company has grown pretty respectably, with an 11.4% CAGR over the past 5 years. Newer segments such as automotive and healthcare have become larger pieces of the pie, helping to drive that growth. More importantly, adjusted operating cash flow grew at an 11.6% CAGR in line with that revenue growth. This drove the business from $263 million in adjusted operating cash flow in 2021 to $407 million in 2025.
We have occasionally presented the business with Graham Media Group and/or corporate office expenses excluded in order to give a better sense of the underlying growth occurring at many segments of the company. We do so again here, although I suspect this might be the last time I do, as the relevance of this is waning. Growth in the rest of the company has made the comparison less useful over time, as the results are now more clearly represented in the consolidated numbers. What this comparison shows is that many segments of the company have been growing substantially. Over the last five years, the operating businesses, excluding Graham Media Group, grew adjusted operating cash flow at a 24.1% CAGR from $142 million in 2021 to $337 million in 2025.
In absolute terms, this growth was led by Kaplan, which increased by $102 million to $213 million in 2025. However, Kaplan actually went down as a percentage of overall adjusted operating cash flow from this group. 2021, Kaplan represented 78% of the non-GMG operating cash flow. By 2025, this number had decreased to 63%. We like to see this, as it implies we have multiple segments that have generated outstanding growth over a sustained period. Let's dive into the operating segments more fully. Andy will discuss Kaplan extensively in just a few minutes, so I'll keep my commentary brief. Q1 revenues were up 4%, and adjusted operating cash flow increased by 15% to $62 million. The business is performing well through tricky currents, but most intensely at Kaplan International. Team is navigating the challenges well.
You, like me, have much to be proud of with Kaplan's performance on all measures. This also feels like a good time to touch on the recently closed transaction to sell Kaplan Languages Group. Andy will discuss how this fits into our larger strategy at Kaplan, but I wanted to share a few vital statistics. The transaction closed this past May 1st. Consideration is tied to future performance, which, if met, will not be material to Graham Holdings. We expect to record a current U.S. income tax benefit of approximately $60 million in 2026, and the brand will transition away from Kaplan over the course of 2026. I'd like to thank everyone associated with successfully managing and completing this transaction. The broadcasting segment is another sector that hasn't been quiet as of late. I'll start off by saying what you might expect.
We are closely following the Tegna and Nexstar merger and the implications for the space, depending on the ultimate outcome. This does not directly impact our business today. We'll continue to manage the business well, look for opportunities to strengthen our operations, and continue to search for new revenue. As for operations, Q1 was a strong quarter, with revenue growing by 8% and adjusted operating cash flow by 31% to $39 million. Results improved due to the Super Bowl and the Olympics' presence on our NBC affiliates, as well as political advertising and primary campaigns. We continue to expect 2026 to be a robust year, due in large part to the Senate campaign in Texas and the gubernatorial and Senate races in Michigan, which should drive significant political advertising in our markets.
Catherine Badalamente and her team have also worked in the last year to bring about rebuilt newsroom processes that should, over time, allow us to increase the percentage of our resources that go into news gathering and reporting. This is an ongoing effort to allow us to adapt from legacy processes to continue to best serve the community and report the news in today's day and age. Our healthcare division saw robust growth in 2025, with adjusted operating cash flow reaching $115 million, surpassing the $100 million mark for the first time. Growth was led by CSI Pharmacy, which continues to scale its footprint and offerings in the in-home infusion market. Revenue growth continued into Q1, with CSI growing 31% and the overall division growing 20%.
Adjusted operating cash flow declined for the quarter by 8% to $21 million, with CSI down $3 million from the prior year. Some, understandably, might find it surprising to see operating income declines with such robust revenue growth. This decline was driven by several factors, notably an investment in a new long-term incentive compensation plan, modest gross margin declines due to pricing and unfavorable mix shift, and most notably, investment in infrastructure for future growth. Many of you know, and hopefully view as a feature of Graham Holdings, that we do not manage the business for any particular quarter. We think there's a good opportunity to grow the long-term value of the company, expand our moats, and increase the intrinsic value of the business for shareholders. We will do so regardless of the impact on a particular quarter.
The result is we may occasionally have depressed earnings in the name of a greater good. Q1 is an example of this approach. We are not running CSI for maximum 2026 cash flow and have been willing to slow earnings growth in the name of future cash flows. You may recall several years ago, I indicated we were investing in CSI in hopes of it becoming a bigger business. This belief came true. For a few quarters, revenue grew with minimal flow through to the bottom line, but the subsequent few years showed rapidly climbing income. It has been about 3 years since we undertook that cycle, and the business is once again ready to take steps in order to position itself to become a larger business with greater earnings growth. We're optimistic we will be successful this time around as well.
While this isn't comprehensive, I'll provide you with some of the major expenditures that materialize in Q1 to help provide a sense of what we are building at CSI. We opened a new pharmacy location in Denver that began ramping in earnest in Q1. This will allow for greater coverage in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest. In Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, we hired and trained a large number of new salespeople as we began expanding into biologics and are attempting to further increase our market penetration in IVIG. The sales team increased in count by 34% from the end of Q3 2025 through Q1 2026, with most of the new team members still in either training or ramp phases in Q1.
We added several new strategic roles to help manage our manufacturer and payer relationships, as well as established a new long-term incentive plan that rewards management for profitably growing the business. This plan began accruing expenses in Q1 of 2026. Over an extended period of time, we expect CSI's cash flow generation to align with revenue growth, but it won't always be a smooth line. The opportunity set will dictate the pace and trajectory of growth. We do, however, expect these investments to be less pronounced in the P&L as the year progresses. At Graham Healthcare Group, our other scaled business within the division, results were good and in line with expectations. Dee Grein is off to a very good start as CEO, and in fact, completed her first acquisition with the purchase of Covenant Home Health based in Eastern Pennsylvania.
This transaction, while relatively small, is something we'd love to replicate. Covenant has strong operations in the Philadelphia home health market. This provided adjacent geographic expansion to our existing Pennsylvania business and further grew our market share and importance to Pennsylvania-based payers. Additionally, when put into the GHG operating structure, it will become a better business economically. That integration is underway, and Dee and the team are optimistic about the future of Covenant and hopeful about more opportunities like it. Manufacturing segment saw strong year-over-year growth to kick off 2026, with revenue increasing 28% and adjusted operating cash flow increasing 38%. This growth was led by Hoover, primarily due to the inclusion of our recently acquired aluminum cladding operation, as well as growth at Joyce, our linear motion business.
Recent trends remain strong. We are optimistic about what the remainder of 2026 will bring within this segment. Our tour around the world continues with our automotive group. Results were down in Q1, both at the revenue and operating income levels. Our exposure to the D.C. metro area has been a drain for the business in recent months. Q1 results were significantly impacted by reduced D.C. area economic activity, as well as the Snowcrete weather event, which severely impacted both sales and repair order volume for several weeks. While we do not expect the latter event to repeat, we're watching D.C. area economic activity closely. Lastly, our Road to Service business continues to gain strong traction. Differentiated experience is built with the customer in mind from the ground up. Our customer satisfaction and NPS scores continue to be best in class for the industry.
We expect growth to accelerate later this year when our new Virginia-based facility opens, allowing for significant expansion in our service area. Our last stop is the other business segment. Results were mixed, with revenue decreasing modestly, but adjusted operating cash flow improving by 21%. We expect continued improvements in adjusted operating cash flow as the year progresses. As a note, revenues excluding World of Good Brands, which we sold in 2025, were up modestly. Within the segment, Framebridge continues to see strong growth as its retail expansion quickens. Year to date, 3 new stores have opened, with the pace expected to accelerate in Q3. Clyde's Restaurant Group performed admirably through the previously mentioned Snowcrete weather event, as well as a massive water main break directly in front of our building that closed our Georgetown location for several weeks.
If you've never seen 4 feet of water in a basement, I can show you pictures. Lastly, our digital media operations continue to feel the impacts of reduced search referral traffic in the age of AI results and engines. While our content continues to be very valuable to LLMs, quid pro quo of traffic in exchange for content has not yet been reestablished. Let's take a step back to some corporate-level observations. Our balance sheet ended the quarter with a $344 million surplus of cash and securities balance as compared to debt. Our securities balance declined in Q1. We were a net seller of securities in addition to price declines. We also began to repurchase shares in Q1, buying 32,190 shares at an average price of approximately $1,061 per share. We've continued repurchasing since the quarter's end.
Thought it might be useful to reiterate our philosophy on share repurchases. We only buy when we think there's a meaningful discount to intrinsic value, conservatively calculated. Price always matters. We do not have a set it and forget it program for repurchases. We will never repurchase shares because we think it will cause a short-term boost in the stock price. We will not repurchase shares if we think it could introduce risk to the balance sheet or limit our ability to act opportunistically elsewhere. I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about our approach on AI here as well. As discussed in the annual letter, we're focused on AI and how it will impact Graham Holdings. Several of those paragraphs summed up my view very well, which I want to reiterate here.
To be blunt, we think AI technologies represent a shift in how business will operate. We do not claim to understand the long-term impacts on how employment will change. We do believe that employees and organizations that effectively harness technological shifts and AI tools will be substantially advantaged as compared to those that do not. We are spending much time at our businesses understanding how AI will change our operations. We are optimistic. Some of the things we think. Full stack employees and leaders will have the most success in our organizations. People who can build applications, natively use AI tools, and understand how it drives the business model will drive the most success and have the most personal success. If you are not vibe coding with AI tools, you will be at a structural disadvantage.
People and process-heavy tasks are where we're most likely to see immediate improvements. In many industries, we think it's a watershed moment. There will be those who adopt AI tools to drive improved business outcomes in a timely manner and those who do not. Improvements in business model will drive market share gains for the haves, leaving the have-nots to become fundamentally impaired. Our operations should be able to drive the cost leverage in general administrative functions, most areas in our companies have room to improve. Lastly, product development timelines at most of our businesses should be measured fractionally as compared to the past. In 2025, we hired a chief technology officer, Spiro Roinous, in the Graham Holdings corporate office. He has worked at several of our businesses dating back to 2009. Spiro and his small team have a challenging job, our expectations are high.
They will be working with many of our businesses to accelerate their understanding and implementation of AI tools to drive real product improvements and improved economics. Lightweight engagement with AI is not a realistic option for organizations that want to thrive in the next decade. You can rest assured that Graham Holdings is setting the cultural tone that provides the best chance of success at our businesses. We believe that this is not outsourceable. All levels of the organization need to and must engage, from the CEO to the most junior employees. Yes, I am building apps and skills, and have only half-jokingly mentioned it might be my highest and best use to the organization. If we get this right, we'll build a stronger, more valuable company. The acceleration of the AI era brings about an interesting set of questions to a holding company model.
How can we help our management teams that come from very different backgrounds and experiences prepare to engage aggressively to understand the new technologies and how their industries may evolve? Has the game changed entirely for any of our companies? If so, how or will core strategies need to change? Do we need to re-underwrite our perspectives on the possible and likely economic outcomes for any of our businesses? I wanted to also briefly cover some of the more tangible steps we have taken to operationalize our AI efforts. We've created a structure at GHC Corporate that can provide resources to forward deploy into our businesses. These resources will accelerate projects, provide AI guidance to help organizations prioritize efforts, and be a centralized resource for our companies to think through data policies, tool utilization, and training programs.
We are working with our units to, 1, measure actions and processes by time spent. 2, help prioritize building tools and apps that reduce that time spent. 3, working with our teams to understand if and how those hours should be reallocated. One brief example. A monthly accounting close is required at each one of our businesses. One of our units has implemented AI tools as part of its monthly close process to improve efficiency. They've had great success, and we are in the process of leveraging this work across our other business units. We also launched a Graham Holdings-wide AI hackathon, where employees throughout the company can submit projects that they believe can improve the business. The winning project will receive a $100,000 prize. It has been encouraging how many of our units have leaned into this event.
The world of AI is evolving quickly. It is imperative that we understand and evolve faster than our competitors as we undertake these efforts. We are operating with that mentality. At this point, I'll turn it over to Andy, who will provide you with a bunch of updates on Kaplan.
Okay. Hello, everybody. Thank you, Tim. I have described in prior years how we try to build Kaplan. Patiently, one layer of earning power at a time in businesses and markets we understand with capabilities others find difficult to replicate. That approach has carried us through a test prep company, a higher education institution, a global educational services business, and now into a period of genuinely rapid technological change. The story this year is a continuation of the one I've been telling. The pace is picking up, and the four main topics I want to talk about today are performance, an immigration headwind, a portfolio decision, and the work we're doing on AI are, in my view, all one story told from different angles. 2025 was a strong year. Revenue of $1.74 billion was up 3%.
Adjusted operating income was $166 million, up 24%. On a reported basis, operating income grew 59%, but the prior year's figure was depressed by a $22.9 million non-cash impairment. By either measure, we produced meaningful operating leverage. U.S. higher education grew operating income 38%, driven primarily by Purdue Global. Supplemental education grew 24% with gains across most of its program lines. Kaplan International grew 12% on flat revenues, with strength in Australia, Singapore, and U.K. Professional more than offsetting the pressure in Pathways that I'll come to shortly. The first quarter of 2026 has carried that trajectory forward with each of our segments generating growth in revenue and operating income.
In the quarterly comparison, the first quarter of this year included close to a $3 million boost due to the intricacies of how we recognize revenue under the Purdue Global agreement. This will normalize in the second quarter. Setting that aside, the underlying performance is solidly ahead of last year across all of our segments. A word about Purdue Global, because the trajectory there is worth understanding. When we completed the sale of Kaplan University in 2018, the institution served roughly 28,500 students. Purdue Global now serves 41,000, the highest enrollment in PG's history, and growth of more than 40% from where that new university started. That growth reflects sustained investment by Purdue and Purdue Global's leadership in academic quality, student support, retention, and careful financial discipline.
We've been glad to contribute our own strengths, which of course have been meaningful to the story. Our choice of Purdue as a partner for that transition has aged well. I know some observers made snap judgments early that this relationship wouldn't work as intended. Fortunately, we don't pay much attention to the hot take crowd. The results speak to the strength of the institution and its ever-increasing academic, social, and financial value. Let me turn to Pathways and Kaplan Business School or KBS, which are under real pressure right now and deserve a direct account. University Pathways is our largest single business within Kaplan International and a material contributor to Kaplan's earnings. New starts are significantly down year to date in both the U.K. and the U.S., our deferred revenue suggests that we'll feel that pressure extend into the second half of the year.
Kaplan Business School, based in Australia, has grown significantly in recent years due to its outstanding academic reputation and its appeal to international students, but it is facing similar headwinds. When I spoke to you two years ago in this meeting, I described three structural forces I believed would shape our business for the next decade or more. The decline in U.S. high school students, the surge in global middle-class demand for higher education, and the preference of transnational students for English-speaking destinations. I still see all three as major long-term drivers, but there's now a new policy layer sitting on top of all of them, at least for the time being. Governments across all four major English-speaking destination markets, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and Canada, have moved in the same direction over the past two years, restricting international student flows. The motivations differ by country.
The effect on Pathways, Kaplan Business School, and also our Ireland-based Dublin Business School is the same. Now, we've seen cycles in this business and in many of our businesses over a long period. We don't overreact to temporary shifts, even ones that may last a while. The Pathways team has built and run this franchise for 2 decades with almost no down years through policy shifts, currency moves, and a pandemic. The same people who delivered that record are running the business now. They are every bit as capable now as they were when they were creating that 20-year growth story that we've been enjoying. We don't mistake a cycle for capability. We've also seen this particular pendulum before. Immigration policy in English-speaking countries oscillates. Restrictions tighten when migration becomes politically heated. They ease when the economic cost becomes visible.
Universities lose revenue, local economies contract, companies struggle to find employees, tax receipts fall. Our business in Singapore, where the government has not pursued similar restrictions, is growing nicely by every measure: student census, revenue, deferred revenue. The underlying demand for quality educational e-education is intact. It is being redirected by policy, not extinguished. The geographic diversity we've built over years is doing exactly what diversification is supposed to do, carrying us when another region is under pressure. Pathways, and to a lesser extent, KBS, have carried other Kaplan units through their own tougher stretches in the past. Today, it's the reverse. That is a purposeful part of how we've structured the company. Our approach in the affected markets is straightforward. We manage costs carefully as volumes soften, pulling out what isn't needed, but we protect the student experience and the partnerships we've spent years building.
Our students and our university partners should not feel the impact of a downturn that isn't theirs. We invest where we're not constrained: Singapore, our domestic higher education and supplemental education businesses, online pathway options that carry less visa dependency. We expand source markets in the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. We position ourselves to recapture volume when the cycle turns. As is almost always the case, we could manage this business for a better 2026 by taking actions that would compromise its long-term earning power. We're not gonna do that. Long-term investors are not paying us to pop a single year at the expense of the franchise. As Tim n oted, we closed the sale of our Kaplan Languages Group last week.
The reasoning he laid out in last year's annual report letter that our thesis for staying with the business through COVID and beyond hadn't been realized, and that it was unlikely that the growth required to justify the necessary investment level would materialize is what led us to the sale. I want to say clearly, this was not a decision about the languages team or its programs. The languages team delivered student outcomes in the very top tier of the industry and navigated the pandemic with a level of skill and integrity I continue to admire. This was a decision about capital allocation. Physical language schools run on fixed costs, leases, staffing. They require consistent volume to produce acceptable returns. The students pay materially less than students in our degree programs, which leaves far less cushion when volumes move against you.
The business is exposed to the same kinds of geopolitical and immigration shifts that I've been describing without the deep academic relationships and switching costs that make our Pathways and degree businesses more resilient. The contrast with our other international recruitment businesses is worth pointing out because it speaks to how we think. Pathways, for example, is a business under cyclical pressure with an intact long-term thesis. It's got a pre-proven team, 20 years of success, and demand that is at least partially redirected rather than lost. Languages was a business where the thesis we had been waiting on simply didn't materialize. Same discipline in both cases. Different facts led to different outcomes. I wish we had felt better about Languages prospects, but we gave it a very long look. The portfolio remains what it was with 1 business now out of it.
Kaplan's 2025 adjusted operating income, excluding languages, would have been approximately $183 million on revenue of roughly $1.6 billion. That's a solid base to build from. That brings me to AI and what we're actually doing with it. Let me first share my own thesis, and it's just that, a thesis, that tells you one reason I'm optimistic about Kaplan's future. Education is roughly a $7 trillion global industry, the vast majority of that spending happens inside public institutions. The U.S. adds a substantial private nonprofit layer. The private for-profit sector, where we operate, is a relatively small share of that large total. It stays small because, among other things, education has strong protective structures: accreditation, licensure, regulation, tradition, reputation, a scarcity of seats at selected schools. These structures exist for good reasons.
They also mean money doesn't move quickly from one part of the system to the other. Students don't or can't switch education providers the way they switch streaming services. AI is gonna materially improve what education can deliver. Tutoring available the moment a student needs it. Feedback that used to take days becoming continuous. Learning that adapts to an individual's pace and gaps. Products and experiences that were conceptually obvious for decades but economically out of reach. These aren't marginal improvements. They change the value proposition. Students will be major beneficiaries of AI, provided that the gains from better learning resources outweigh the temptation to use AI to skip the learning itself. That is a real tension. Educators everywhere are working through it. The net, I believe, will be strongly positive. The economic gains will flow to whoever adopts AI most effectively to realize these improvements.
Public institutions have real strengths, but their governance, their procurement systems, political considerations, faculty processes, not to mention cultural bureaucracy and caution, was not built for rapid change. Private nonprofits have more flexibility, but still have plenty of similar constraints. Private for-profits are more often built around innovation and nimbleness, and they generally have fewer structural barriers. Not none. We still work with accreditors, regulators, and partners, and we take those relationships very seriously, but fewer. In a period of rapid change, that matters a lot. The thesis is this: Over long periods, many years, not quarters, the gap between what the fastest adopting operators deliver and what slower moving institutions provide is gonna widen.
The protective walls will hold for a long time. Walls eventually yield when the value proposition gap becomes large enough and the share of global education spending flowing out of traditional institutions to demonstrably superior private sector offerings should grow. In other words, to be direct about it, I believe it's very likely that in the coming years, private companies will, as a group, outperform traditional educational institutions, as private companies tend to be faster moving and typically have less bureaucracy and fewer governance and cultural constraints. We're talking about a large pool of money, and even modest shifts in how it flows are significant. To be clear, none of this guarantees Kaplan anything. We still have to build products that are genuinely better, and we still have to compete for students, for partners, for funding, and more.
We are not guaranteed a single dollar of revenue. Conditions will increasingly favor operators who can move quickly. We intend to be one of them. I've spoken in prior years about our belief that generative AI will meaningfully reshape education, that on balance, we see more opportunity than risk. A year or two deeper into the work, I can be a bit more specific. Let me start with this. The cost of producing educational content is coming down, and it will come down further. I don't believe it's headed to zero, at least not for content we put our name on. Quality educational material still requires careful human editing, subject matter vetting, pedagogical judgment, and ongoing oversight. What AI changes is what our people can produce with their time, not whether their time is needed.
That principle runs through everything else I wanna say. Kaplan is a deeply human enterprise. Our core strength has never been about content or technology in isolation. It is our people, the trust and respect they have for each other and for our students, and the fundamentally human work of helping someone get better at something hard. That is what our students and partners pay us for at the deepest level. That is a strategic asset, not a sentimental one. We intend to protect it as we embrace AI. Our students assume that we will marshal the best technology on their behalf. We are not trying to become a one-button company run by bots. I don't think that would be a winning strategy if we tried. The combination of AI and excellent people, our people empowered by AI, not being replaced by it, is what will win.
Our culture is one of our strongest assets, a key component of what we call The Kaplan Way is continuous transformation. We are accustomed to being nimble and embracing change. I believe that adaptiveness will help us transition faster than most in the industry. The shape of our workforce will evolve, roles will change, the mix of what our people do and the way we staff individual processes will shift meaningfully. What should not change is the character of the place. We are on a path toward what we internally call AI-first. By that, I mean an organization where the default assumption about any process or activity is that AI handles it, unless the activity genuinely requires human judgment, oversight, or the uniquely human elements that our customers pay us for.
Now, there will be a lot of such circumstances, but our people will be vastly more productive, empowered by AI than they were without it. We will not complete this transformation in a single year, and indeed, in some sense, I expect the process will go on without end. We have made real progress over the past year, and we expect meaningful further progress by year-end and still more next year. The trajectory is one I'm pleased with. The work falls into three categories, each creating value differently. The first is process work. Reconciliations, content production, admissions workflows, advisor support. Here, AI is an automation tool, and the efficiency gains are direct and measurable.
We have staff assistant platforms live across all of our company advising teams, for example, saving meaningful time per call and producing real cost savings this year as we grow student volumes without growing headcount. In many cases, we're using AI for time-intensive processes that are simply too time-consuming for a human to do, but AI can fill the gap. The second is cognitive work. Advising, tutoring, analysis, content design. Here, AI is a capacity amplifier. The output still looks like a tutoring session or a graded essay or a piece of advice, but it is produced faster, at higher quality, and at a scale we couldn't previously reach. One AI tutor product is deployed across more than 70 courses, serving more than 50,000 students.
KapAdvisor, our AI college advising tool, has reached 100,000 cumulative enrollments and contributed to nearly a 17% growth in our pre-college segments. These are not pilots. They are scaled products changing how students engage with us. The third category is one I'm particularly excited about and the hardest to quantify today. AI is letting us build products and services we simply could not have afforded to build before. Some that are new and some that had previously we had contemplated but were economically out of reach. We are working on several of these, and you'll be hearing more about them in coming years. We have some structural advantages in doing this work well. We have proprietary data, decades of longitudinal student performance, behavior, and outcomes that most competitors don't. Generic AI is widely available. AI combined with Kaplan's data produces results others can't replicate.
We have a diversified portfolio, which means that when one business unit builds something that works, we can deploy it across the others rather than rebuilding from scratch. The standard we hold ourselves to is not activity or experimentation, but transformation, measured by what's actually changed and how work gets done. We are looking for scale deployment and measurable trajectory, and we are putting real capital behind it. The returns should show up over the coming years in both our cost structure and in new revenue. 4 topics: our results, immigration challenges, portfolio adjustment, and AI Embrace. 1 story. Across all of them, we're doing what we've always tried to do: build patiently, remain disciplined through cycles, reallocate capital when a thesis hasn't played out, and move decisively on what we think we can see coming. The circumstances change, the approach shouldn't. There will be disruptions along the way.
There always are. What we can control is the quality of our programs, the strength of our partnerships, and the discipline with which we allocate capital, along with the character of the organization that does all of it. On each of these, I believe Kaplan is in good shape. Tim, back to you.
The meeting is now open to nominations for election of directors. We will have the voting on directors, followed by voting on the proposal before the Class A shareholders. While the ballots are being counted, the floor will be open to any questions on business matters or comments you may have. In order to proceed with the election of directors, there are 10 directors to be elected, 7 by the holders of Class A common stock and 3 by the holders of Class B common stock. The chair recognizes Mr. Cooney, who is a holder of Class B common stock and who is also a substitute proxy for a holder of Class A common stock.
I nominate the following persons for election as directors of the company to hold office until the next annual meeting of stockholders and until their respective successors shall be elected and shall qualify, or as otherwise stated provided in the bylaws. For election by the holders of Class A common stock, Tom Gayner, Don Graham, Jack Markell, Anne Mulcahy, Tim O'Shaughnessy, Rick Wagoner, Katharine Weymouth. For election by the holders of Class B common stock, Tony Allen, Danielle Conley, Chris Davis.
I second the nominations.
There being no further nominations, I declare the nominations closed. I now declare the polls open for voting for the election of directors and for the proposal to approve the 2025 compensation awarded to named executive officers. I've been informed by the inspectors of votes that the holders of 96.27% of the Class A common stock have voted their shares. The only ballots to be distributed will be those for the election of directors by holders of Class B common stock. Many of you have already voted your shares for this meeting. If you have already voted online or by proxy card, your shares will be voted as you instructed, so please do not request a ballot now unless you wish to change your vote. Otherwise, tabulation of the vote will be unnecessarily complicated and delayed.
For any stockholders who wish to vote by ballot, please raise your hand now so the inspector of votes may locate you. All right. If there were any, I direct inspectors of votes to distribute the ballots and after the voting inform me when they've completed the tabulation of the ballots. We'll now pause briefly while the ballots are handed out. After they've been marked and been collected, we'll proceed with questions or comments. While we're waiting for the results of the voting to be tabulated, we will open the floor to any questions or comments you may have relating to the nominees for election as directors or about the business operations of the company.
We want everyone to have a chance to ask a question or make a comment, so raise your hand so I can call on you and tell us your name and who you're with, and we'll get going from there. All right. We've got our Q&A period is open now. I see a hand there, Mr. Lipari.
Is this on? Okay. John Lipari from Raymond James. I have a comment, a throwaway question, and then possibly a real question.
Triple play. All right.
Nice to see the receivable from Purdue go down meaningfully, something I look at each year. The throwaway question is, have you ever considered changing the other category to another name? The reason I ask is it reminds me of the big Aristotle, also known as Shaquille O'Neal, who, if you weren't a star on the team or he didn't know your name, he called you the others. Okay? I always love Shaq, but I always thought that was a little condescending. This is my throwaway question, obviously. Have you ever thought about calling it future earnings or future value or something besides other?
Not really, to be totally honest.
Okay. Would you think about it?
You know, if there's something that represents it better, maybe.
Okay.
It hasn't been high on the list of brain space stuff.
I understand. Possibly the real question. You talked about in the annual report, and I think on Investor Day about Graham Media. I don't think Graham Media gets enough credit for how great it's done over the last 5 or 6 years producing cash. You know, the future looks a little tougher. You talk about regulation and law changes, what does that look like? I know it's a long shot, we just kinda wanna understand what we're hoping for to maybe have a better future in media.
I'll start and then maybe I'll ask Catherine, who's sitting over here, to opine as well. You know, I agree. We are very thankful for Graham Media Group. Catherine has done an excellent job running that business. Her predecessors before that did an excellent job running that business. It has generated a lot of cash for the company that we've been able to use to grow Kaplan, to grow other businesses and segments, and it continues to generate a lot of cash for the company today. I sort of joke it's fortunate that Andy and Catherine are sitting next to each other because it's a little bit of like a boxing match of who's gonna go and generate the most cash flow for the year this year.
We'll see how that plays out. The regulation question, you know, there are structural challenges with the sector, and we've discussed those, and I think many of those are known and obvious. You have a set of laws that have been in place, that were put in place decades ago, in many cases. Some of them going back to, you know, mid-century of the prior year in some cases. They don't make sense in today's day and age. You may not like. There's a lot of political narrative that gets tied up, if you just take a step back and say, "Hey, is the way that this is structured or what does the competitive set look like?" They really are vestiges of a different era.
They are still laws, and they are still part of how the industry has to go and operate with those regulations. My sense is that if you were to change some of those regulations, the ability to have more scale and buy more time to figure out what the industry looks like and what this local news and video product looks like in the future is enhanced. I don't think making regulation go away solves the problems, but I think it generates more time to figure out what things might look like on the other side, and it probably would involve some of what you've seen. There's been incremental consolidation that's occurred, and there's a big attempt at that right now as well. I think that's the output.
I don't think it is a, an end-all, be-all solution, but it is something that buys time to have a better shot at that. Catherine?
First of all, thank you so much for your comment. We are, like Tim said, looking at the opportunities in front of us, and the relaxation of some of the ownership rules give us a lot of optimism when we look at what the opportunities could be. Setting aside what's happening right now with Tegna and Nexstar, I think that everyone feels like this relaxation of the rules allows us to be able to look at the future from an optimistic standpoint because it means that some of those rules that have been onerous, some of the things, like Tim said, you're looking at a time gone by where we were competing against other media, and now we compete against everybody in big tech in a big way, and the rules just don't make sense anymore.
Being able to relax those rules and give us some opportunity to be able to get real synergy by partnering or being able to look at new acquisition opportunities or looking at our region and our markets as really, you know, unlimited potential in terms of what we can do for those communities is really something that we think is a strong possibility for us. We look forward to that. I think the truth is, and I was just talking to someone this morning, our communities want and need what we produce.
We just, you know, through AI, looking at what Andy just shared with you, it's inspirational for us to say, "How can we apply AI to allow us to be able to better serve those communities with less friction, with less production." Being able to get those stories to those users and people in the communities that desperately need the kinds of information that we provide to them every single day. If I didn't have an audience, a community, and customers, frankly, that desperately need what we do, it would be a different conversation.
Okay. Yes, that table there.
Can you hear me?
Yeah.
A few questions under the broad bucket of capital allocation. One is going to the annual report from this year. You shared the operating manual, I think, for the first time, which is, I think, an aggregation of the way you guys have essentially operated. One question there is, you know, one of the things you mentioned is to be flexible enough to issue shares if you believe you're getting more than you're giving. I think looking at the recent history of the company, or I don't know if the company's ever issued shares to do a deal. You know, that seems to be something new, and would love some thoughts around that.
Then on the more near-term basis, in the first quarter, you bought back around $35 million of shares after being dormant, I think, for most of 2025. Perhaps that speaks to your thoughts around the growing earnings power of the company, so maybe you can talk a little bit about that. Then I noticed you sold around $50 million from the equity portfolio, again, after a long period of, you know, being pretty dormant. I don't know to the degree to which you can discuss your thoughts around that. A few capital allocation questions. Thanks.
Got it. Maybe I'll go in reverse order. You know, we don't tend to comment on specific securities. But there was, you know, something that we thought made sense to sell at that point in time, and we sold a bit. You know, on the share repurchase side, yeah, it's the first time that we'd repurchased meaningfully since probably the middle Q2, Q3 of 2024. Long arc of time that, you know, a 16-20 month break is probably not that long. But, you know, we repurchase shares under a set of guidelines, which I've talked about before. Those guidelines were all met. And that's where we began to repurchase.
As I mentioned earlier, we continued to purchase into Q2 as well. We like that, and we hope to be able to do more. On the comment on the potential issuance of shares, It's not a signal. It's not there's anything. I think it's hard to be intellectually honest if you don't have that in your possible consideration set. We are trying to increase cash flow on a per share basis over extended periods of time. If there is a scenario where you issued shares and we thought we were getting more than we were giving, that could be a rational decision to do so.
It was really just in that spirit and vein and making sure people know that we're not wedded to a share count that must consistently go down. We are wedded to growing cash flow on a per share basis. Now I tend to think the circumstances are such where it is much more likely, and that has been in my 11 plus years at the company, it has been true that we have not found any of those opportunities, and we have found opportunities to bring the share count down. It's really in that vein. I think it's hard to be intellectually honest with yourself and with everyone if you don't have that in your consideration set as well. Question that came in just before the meeting I thought I would address.
In 1970, our portfolio company, Berkshire Hathaway, created significant shareholder value through its participation in the friendly takeover of Blue Chip Stamps. Given this precedent, would the company be open to pursuing similar opportunities in the future, specifically engaging in strategic or activist positions within established publicly traded companies? I thought that was an interesting question. In general, if we owned a position in a company and we had a good relationship with management and they wanted us to help, I think we would be open to that. I think there are a lot of ways we can spend our time, and there are a lot of ways we can create value without a hostile and activist type of position in a company.
I think that is an unlikely scenario for us to have an unwelcome interaction with a company. A welcome interaction with the company, of course, we'd be open to that. All right.
Hi. Thanks, Tim. Mark Hughes with Lafayette Investments. In your letter, you mentioned the purchase of what's now Hoover Architectural Solutions, and you mentioned that you assumed $108 million of pension liability. You know, we've tried for years to figure out what to do with the overfunded pension plan. Could you just talk about what role your ability to assume those liabilities played in that transaction?
It was a key role in that transaction. The seller had an underfunded plan and that they were having to make annual cash contributions to. This particular business, I don't wanna speculate into their overall strategy, but this particular business they had deemed as different enough and non-core from their operations. The fact that we could assume those liabilities was of a huge cash benefit to the seller. For us, we don't have to make any additional cash contributions. A large portion of the value exchange was the assumption of those liabilities. We have now done this twice in my tenure at the company.
In 2017, we acquired two television stations, WSLS in Roanoke and a CW in Jacksonville, where an assumption of liabilities was also part of that transaction. We're open, and we would like to do more. If anybody is sitting there with an underfunded plan and a decent business, you know, give me a ring. As you might imagine, we've run all of the screens of public companies and have a decent understanding of what that looks like. We don't have as much insight into private companies, and private companies also can have pensions, and they also could have underfunding issues. I think that's an area where something were to come about, we'd be very interested in kind of replicate this type of transaction.
Hi. Question for Andy. Andy, what explains the acceleration in enrollment growth at Purdue Global in the most recent quarter?
Excellent performance. I think the reputation of the institution has continued to improve. I will say that the slowdown of the economy is helpful as well. There's no question that people, when they feel a little more concerned about their professional future, they tend to invest in themselves with education. That's probably part of it as well. I think that Purdue Global is a recognized, admired institution out there now among online institutions, and I think we're seeing the effects of that.
Yeah, just to reiterate, there wasn't anything special. It was just the consistent kind of execution of the business. Yeah. Chief.
Just a quick follow-on to that for, on the education side. Andy, do any of the university relationships beyond Purdue become meaningful? I think in the annual report, you talked about, Wake Forest, UMass, and I think a couple others, but I know Purdue is the largest, but do some of those other relationships become consequential from a financial perspective over the next three to five years?
I hope so. I hope so. I mean, we'll continue to build them, and I think there's a good chance that one or two or maybe more will break out over that period.
Maybe transition to the healthcare business, Tim. Thanks for the updates. Actually, I was wondering about some of the operational results for the quarter, and thanks for sharing some of the infrastructure investments. A few questions. One is, any thoughts, I don't know if our business leader for healthcare is here, our new business leader, Dee, but would love to hear kind of her early thoughts on the business and her impressions and the opportunities, and I think you outlined some of those. On the biologics side, I think that's a new disclosure that you just shared with us. Is that a much larger opportunity over time than IVIG? I was also interested to hear that you mentioned that there's still opportunity to take share within IVIG, which is interesting.
Maybe you can, to the degree that you feel comfortable scaling, you know, quantifying some of those opportunities over the next several years, it'd be really interesting to hear your thoughts. Then just a bigger picture question is, you know, CSI is still comping at 30%, you know, year after year, quarter after quarter. When do the law of large numbers kind of I mean, now you're introducing biologics, so maybe this can continue. You know, without giving guidance, maybe just, you know, share the magnitude of the opportunity over time because this just seems like a goldmine.
Well, I'll start on the infusion business, and then I'll turn it over. Dee is here, and so I'll turn it over to her to give some of her impressions on Graham Healthcare Group so far. On the CSI and on the biologics side, there are more disease states. It is a bigger market. It's a different market. There's different structures associated with it. We believe that it is a very logical adjacency, and we've, I would say, lightly been exploring over time, but a very logical adjacency that leverages a lot of the same operations and processes that we have. It was really a question of when do we want to meaningfully go into that.
We made that decision in, you know, kind of the second half of last year that let's go and pursue this business in earnest. There's a lot of disease states, there's a lot of growth associated with that, but there are some different structures that we need to make sure that we handle well. On the broader growth opportunity, we are continuing to invest to become a bigger business than we are today. I specifically called out the fact that the sales team was 34 larger over a six-month period of time, and that they were kind of still in training or ramp phase, because both it shows in the numbers, but to give you a sense of what we think the opportunity set still looks like.
What I would say is we started as a regional business that I would say is more super regional on the way to becoming national. We are, we are licensed everywhere, but I would not say we are scaled everywhere. What is nice about that is we can look at our markets, and we have a sense, we're in enough places where we have a sense of how that, those cohorts will grow. As I referenced in my, in my letter, I believe that we have more markets where we are not close to fully penetrated than are. We believe that there should be meaningful continued growth to come. The take a step back part of that is that this really makes sense.
If you look at demographic trends, if you look at disease state trends, if you look at desire for in-home care to occur, and infusion to occur, and the compliance associated with receiving it in-home as opposed to having to go out somewhere, we're in a very good part of a pie that is growing, that is part of a bigger pie that is also growing. When you have multiple tailwinds from the category you're in, if you can execute well, you should be able to be rewarded for that. I think that's what we've seen and expect to continue to see. I agree, you can only grow at 30% for so long.
You know, we'll do our best to continue that growth in a responsible way. We expect that we should be able to continue to grow, you know, at least in 2026 and, you know, for the foreseeable future beyond. Dee, do you wanna give your-
Hi. Hi, is this working? Yeah.
Yeah.
Hi, thanks for the question. On the home health and the hospice business, which I've now been the CEO for about five months, I've been incredibly impressed by the strength of this organization as I've come on board, particularly around the financial and operating discipline, the strength of the people, and the kind of expertise and tenure of the team, as well as the compliance culture that exists all the way down to the front line. To me, those are the three ingredients of an incredibly strong foundation, and it's a great place from which to start my tenure. As I look forward, this business is poised for growth. We have a lot of growth actually left in the markets and the service lines where we already operate today. There's density to be gained in the geographies where we have current footprint.
Our hospice business particularly has a lot of potential for upside. The acquisition that Tim referenced is indicative of our view that there is still room to penetrate further where we are today. Beyond that, there is growth potential in geographies all over the country, frankly, and I think the hardest thing that we face as a team is what do we say no to, and how do we make smart decisions about where we plant our next flagpole from a geography perspective? There's also service line expansion.
I think that's a little bit of a farther play for us, but we continue to look at and are starting to kinda pick our heads up and think about beyond home health and hospice, how do we take the strengths of this organization and begin to add additional service lines that strengthen our proposition across the care continuum? It's been a great onboarding, a great few months, and I look forward to what we can do with this organization.
I would just say, Dee is understating. She's been great in her first 5 or 6 months at the company. Like, we are really lucky to have her as the leader of the organization here. I hope you should go introduce yourself after if you get the chance to. Questions. Other It's, like, just dark enough I can barely see.
Tim, you said the conditions were met for a share repurchase in the first quarter of this year. What condition was not met last year?
What a good question, Eli. I think the, you know, the opportunity set that we had and some things that we were looking at, we wanted to go and preserve cash for, and those things didn't play out. You know, the set of variables changed.
Rajiv again. Just a quick question on CapEx guidance for the year. I think you're at $90 million-$100 million, which is a bit of a step up, I think, from previous years. I think in previous years you were at 70, but that was offset by some sales, I think. I'm assuming a lot of this has to do with some of the investments you've talked about in healthcare, but are we talking about a higher CapEx level the next few years as you make investments or am I kind of reading too much into the CapEx step up?
Yeah. I think it's probably somewhere in between. I would say historically, we've ended up maybe coming a little bit less than what our initial projections would've been. I think if you look back over the last, you know, five or six years, that has tended to be the case. Do have a couple of one-off projects that are in flight that are of some reasonable size. There's a new kind of large, I think we're hoping it's a flagship type of restaurant within the group that should open up later this year. At and at our Honda dealership as well, there's a very large image refresh project that's going on there too.
I'd say those are both one-off and not systemic, but, you know, most years there's something. There's always a one or two off type of item. It's possible it's up a little. There might be a little more one-off-ish than normal, but I don't think it's directionally off. Maybe the other piece I would say is that there is a little bit of CapEx historically in the Kaplan Languages Group business. It is a premise-based business that is also no longer will be part of the equation, which went to bed in the initial forecast as well. John.
Tim, you said a few years ago that if we saw you spending more and more money on Framebridge, that was a good thing. You made a few comments about Framebridge. Can you tell us where you're at, what metrics you're looking at or? Obviously you're pleased with how it's doing because we're spending more money. Just a little bit more detail on Framebridge, what you're seeing and what you like, and I know you're not gonna answer this, but when will it, you know, turn positive?
Yeah.
That's my question.
We love the business, we love our place in the business, and we love the market that we occupy. It is a bigger category and space than most people realize on the surface. We have created a differentiated experience, both from an online and a retail standpoint, that, I think has a lot of moat characteristics to it, and it would be very challenging to compete with over time. I would say the other thing, we also have a formula at this point on retail locations where we can be pretty smart and understand where places should go, have a relatively good idea of what that store should be able to produce, and we are starting to accelerate our ability to go and roll those out.
We are early in how big this business has the chance of ultimately getting. We are closer to the finish line than the beginning of the capital consumption phase associated with it. We are still in that, but I think we are beyond peak, and we are at a spot where operating leverage with future revenue growth really should start to happen. The two metrics that we really look at are 1, the demand generation side, which will be mostly driven by store growth, as well as same store results. That is a very clear picture to me. We have 47 stores right now. We're not in your state, Florida, at all. There are a lot of markets that we need to enter.
I wouldn't say there's a single metro area where we consider ourselves, you know, penetrated in terms of store rollout as well. There is a long way to go on that front, but a very clear line of sight of how we get there. I just point that out because it's so rare in business where you have a level of confidence in the demand side and that that will continue to happen, and I think that both I have that and Susan has that confidence. The other key metric is how much do we keep for every unit that we produce or the gross margin? And that is the key toggle when we're sitting here 10 years from now.
Have we been? Has this been an okay use of capital, a great use of capital, or a knock-it-out-of-the-park use of capital? The level of driving the efficiency with which we produce at our studios is the other kinda key metric. That's store growth and then how efficiently we produce in those gross margins are the things that we really are focused at driving internally. Something Susan and I spend a lot of time talking about both of those things. I think the opportunity set is intact. We clearly see a path, I would say, on both of those things. I think one of them is very, well, I don't wanna say rinse and repeat. That doesn't give enough credit to it.
The other requires some additional step changes in how we actually produce at this point in time. Sure. For those on the stream, he has a follow-up.
It appears that it's a first-mover advantage, that there's not any unreal technology into framing that I'm aware of. I've asked you this question before, to get into Florida, to get into more states, we're doing it all by ourself, it seems like that slows us down a little bit. Any thought of capital partners? I know that's maybe blasphemy to you. To speed up the process so that we're 120 locations in 2 or 3 years, what's the up and down of that?
Yeah. Well, I like your 120 because I would if we're sitting here 3 years from now, I would guess we'd probably be about 120 locations. You know, there's a world where we should have a rhythm where we are opening, you know, a cadence of 25+ stores a year. You know, I would hope we are at that rhythm in 2026. Certainly that rhythm in the back half of 2026. Capital isn't a constraint on it. One of the other things that has been asked on occasion is there a franchise model that exists?
That would be We're very challenged on that 'cause Having a safety culture and the chain of control associated with that is hugely important when you're dealing with things that are valuable to people, both could be from a financial standpoint, or it could be the movie tickets from the first date of their spouse that they went on with their spouse that died. Like, that is valuable in a different way. Having the right systems and care and controls over that is something where, in a franchise world, that always has been something we a bridge we wouldn't be comfortable with. That is a core part of how we think about differentiation, and what makes it very, very hard for others to compete with.
Capital isn't a constraint at this point in time either. Other questions? We have about 10 more minutes if there are questions. I think I see Rajiv's hand going up there again.
I wanted to make sure there was no one else before I kept on going here. Tim, on the manufacturing division, maybe talk to us. It seems like business is getting better. If you exclude Arconic, which obviously, you know, affects, you know, how you look at the numbers. Can you just talk us through the improvement that we're seeing in the cash flows from that division? I know some of this you've talked about in previous years. There have been various macro issues affecting each of the four subdivisions, but maybe talk us through, you know, what's going on broadly with-
Yeah
With that, segment.
I think Hoover is the biggest within that segment, what I would call the majority in the traditional Hoover business, on the fire retardant wood side is tied to multi-family housing, among other things. That is still in a down cycle. The team is running that well and is figuring out how to produce, you know, good amounts of cash in that world. And I'm really excited to see what it looks like when we get back to an upcycle there. I think it appears that we're through the worst of that some of those trends, at least in the last couple of quarters, have not, you know, continued to get worse.
On the rest of the business, we completed a plant expansion at Joyce, so that was 1 of those 1-off CapEx projects from a year or 2 ago. That has worked well. We are seeing, you know, there was a consolidation of 2 facilities plus an expansion that allowed us to take advantage of some incremental demand and some customer dynamics in the industry. We took advantage of those, and we're reaping the benefits of that decision right now. Maybe the last 1 I would comment on is that, you know, Dekko, their biggest end market was commercial real estate. That was a terrible few years. You know, for a while it was when would it stop getting worse.
We reduced the cost structure on that to if we were to return to previous levels of revenue, we would have a better business. We are starting to see some growth, we've gotten that commercial cycle, we've gotten through that, and you are starting to see some growth in that end market again. I would say that's the last thing I would comment on, that we're starting to see some of the benefits flow through with a little bit of incremental revenue there. All right, other questions? Eli. Get up.
Was that Don?
No, no. Eli.
Other than Framebridge, could you maybe talk about the businesses in the other segment that are still losing money and the general plans for bringing those to profits?
Yeah, I would talk about this and how we always view these. You know, if it's an investment stage business, do we think the capital is going to be something that will go and drive the acceptable returns off of that investment that's going in? That's how we analyze. What we do is if something isn't working, we Or if it could be a better home or somebody could do a better job with that, we will look at that. You know, last year, an example of that was with World of Good Brands, where the amount of referral traffic from search engines was really impacting that digital media business quite substantially.
We didn't see an ability to turn that around, and we came to the conclusion Those brands should be part of something that had more scale. We decided to exit and sell that. That is an example of if we couldn't see a path, we will take that action. That's how we view, that's how we view everything within that, is we monitor, engage with those businesses pretty closely. You know, I think we look at it how I think you hope that we would look at it, where something's not a permanent place there if we don't see a path where the returns on the capital invested will be adequate.
My last question, I promise. This one's on the pension plan. I just wanted to clarify. I think it went from roughly $2.5 billion overfunded to $2.7 billion overfunded roughly at the end of 2025. That's even after the Arconic outflow. Is that correct? I don't know. Wally?
That sounds directionally correct. Yeah.
I know there were some thoughts around various, you know, things you were thinking about in previous years, including, you know, taking money out, and it didn't work. It didn't make sense at the end of the day. Then, you talked about, you know, looking for other opportunities. Any other thoughts? I know you tried experimenting with the healthcare division, perhaps using some of the overfunded pension to retain workers. Whatever, you know, program was thought didn't quite work out. Any other kind of ideas currently that you guys are thinking about from a pension perspective.
Issue that you have?
Yeah. We are always thinking about are there ways to leverage the pension for both employees and as a strategic asset of the company. We figured out new ways to do it that we hadn't thought of 5 years ago or 10 years ago, and I would suspect 5 or 10 years from now, there will be new things that we haven't thought of yet. This is not a well-trod path.
When we look at something, there's not case law, there's not a lot that exists where you can say, "Okay, we should do X, Y, and Z." In many cases, we are doing the, what I would call the original work and analysis, and talking with various different experts, whether it's governmental, legal, et cetera, to understand what is and isn't allowable, getting opinions and perspectives from them. And that, you know, that work is what has allowed us to incrementally figure out how to leverage it over time, and that work continues. I think that it's an important and a huge benefit to the company. You're looking at a lot of active pensioners in the room right now, and we like that.
but we know that we will over time figure out how to leverage it even further. We may have time for one more question, if we've got one. If not, we'll Okay. All right. Well, the polls have now been closed, and the ballots for the election of directors and the proposal for the Class A shareholders have all been tabulated.
Mr. O'Shaughnessy, the inspectors of votes have presented their report showing the following results. On the election of directors to hold office until the next annual meeting of stockholders and until their respective successors have been elected and shall qualify, or as otherwise provided in the bylaws, the following directors have been elected by the holders of Class A common stock and all received 928,001 votes. Tom Gayner, Don Graham, Jack Markell, Anne Mulcahy, Tim O'Shaughnessy, Rick Wagoner, and Katharine Weymouth. The following directors have been elected by the holders of Class B common stock, all received at least 1,633,111 votes. Tony Allen, Danielle Conley, and Chris Davis.
On the proposal to approve the 2025 compensation awarded to named executive officers, the holders of 928,001 shares of Class A stock, or 96.27% of the outstanding Class A stock, voted for the proposal.
I hereby declare that based on the report of the inspectors of votes, the individuals nominated by the board of directors and named in the report have been duly elected directors of the company. In addition, the proposal to approve 2025 compensation awarded to named executive officers have been approved. I direct that the report of the inspectors of votes be filed with the records of the meeting. Is there any further business to be brought before the meeting? If not, I suggest we adjourn.
I move that this meeting be adjourned.
All those in favor of the motion? Opposed? Motion carried. I hereby declare the meeting adjourned.