Meeting will come to order. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am William Lambert, Chairman of the Board of Directors. Speaking for the directors and management, I would like to welcome all of you to Kennametal's virtual annual meeting of share owners, and thank you for attending the meeting today via this audio webcast. Madam Secretary, are there any administrative matters we need to address before we begin the meeting?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, there are. First, notice of this meeting was properly made to the share owners. I have an affidavit to that effect from Broadridge Financial Solutions, the company's proxy service provider, who mailed the notice. The affidavit is available if any share owner wishes to examine it, and I will file it with the records of the corporation. Second, the Board of Directors has appointed as judges of election Magnolia Indira Bernhard, Laura Tim, and The Carideo Group, represented today by Tony Carideo, to determine the existence of a quorum, the validity of the proxies, and the results of the voting. The judges of election have duly taken their oath of office in writing. I have that document and will file it with the records of the corporation. During the meeting, the judges of election will be tabulating the votes.
After the meeting, the judges will deliver a report in writing to me for filing with the records of the corporation, duly certified, relating to the discharge of their duties during the course of the meeting, together with all proxies, ballots, and vote tallies. Third, the stock records, which reflect the share owners entitled to vote at this meeting, are on the meeting website and are available for share owners to inspect. Finally, at the close of business on August 28, 2026, which is the record date, there were 76,390,031 shares of the capital stock of the corporation issued and outstanding. There are present in person or by proxy at this meeting more than a majority of the total shares issued and outstanding. Therefore, a quorum is present.
Thank you. I declare a quorum present, and the meeting is now open for business. We have set aside a period for questions and discussion following adjournment of the formal business segment of the meeting. Share owners may submit questions and comments in the designated field of the web portal at any time during the meeting, and we will address them at the end of the meeting. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending this webcast today is permitted to use any audio recording devices. To begin the meeting, I note that the members of our Board of Directors are all in attendance today and will be named later.
We also have members of management of the corporation in attendance today, including Sanjay Chowbey, President and Chief Executive Officer, David Bersaglini, President, Metal Cutting Segment, Amanda Cole, Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Faisal Hamadi, President, Infrastructure Segment, Michelle Keating, Vice President, Secretary, and General Counsel, Dr. Carlonda Reilly, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, and Patrick Watson, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We will now proceed with the agenda items to be voted on by the share owners. The proxy materials were mailed to share owners on September 14th, 2026. Proxy votes were received and tabulated by The Carideo Group, an independent inspector of election. The final tabulation of votes is presently being conducted by the judges of election. After all the proposals have been presented, I will pause to allow time for online voting.
We will now consider the election of nine Directors, each to serve for a one-year term until the annual meeting of share owners to be held in 2027. As set forth in the proxy statement, the nominees chosen by the Board of Directors of Kennametal are Joseph Alvarado, Shelley Bausch, Sanjay Chowbey, Douglas T. Dietrich, Richard J. Harshman, Dawne Hickton, Lorraine Martin, Sagar Patel, and Paul Sternlieb. No other nominations were submitted by any share owner prior to the meeting. Next, the ratification of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the present fiscal year is now in order. The audit committee has elected to retain PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent auditors for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2027.
The Board of Directors believes that it is a matter of good corporate governance to submit its selection of an independent auditor to our share owners for ratification. Representatives from PricewaterhouseCoopers are attending the meeting today via teleconference and will be available to answer questions during the question and discussion portion of the meeting. We will now consider the non-binding advisory vote to approve the compensation paid to Kennametal's named executive officers, as explained in the proxy statement and referred to as Say on Pay . This vote is not intended to address any specific item of compensation, but rather the overall compensation of executive officers and Kennametal's compensation philosophy, policies, and practices. Our share owners overwhelmingly approved the compensation paid to our named executive officers in fiscal year 2026, with approximately 99% of votes cast in favor of the advisory vote on executive compensation presented at our annual meeting.
In determining the structure of the compensation of our NEOs for fiscal 2026, the committee decided to retain our general approach to executive compensation, with an emphasis on performance-based incentive compensation components that reward our executives when they deliver value to the company and our share owners. All proposals have been presented for share owner vote. Any share owner who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions. If you have already voted by mailing in your proxy or have voted by phone or on the internet, and you do not want to change your vote, no further action is necessary. I will pause now for a few minutes while online voting is completed. Voting is now completed, and the polls are now closed.
The Secretary will now announce the preliminary results of the voting as tabulated by the judges of election.
The judges of election have completed the preliminary tabulation of votes by the share owners. The results are, regarding the election of nine Directors for terms to expire in 2027, Joseph Alvarado, Shelley Bausch, Sanjay Chowbey, Douglas Dietrich, Richard J. Harshman, Dawne Hickton, Lorraine Martin, Sagar Patel, and Paul Sternlieb have been elected Directors. Regarding the ratification of the independent auditors for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2027, the selection of the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP has been ratified. Regarding the non-binding advisory vote to approve the compensation paid to Kennametal's named executive officers, it has been approved. We will report the final voting results in a Form 8-K, which will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within four business days.
We will now adjourn the business segment of the meeting and proceed to our reports. At this time, I'd like to introduce Sanjay Chowbey, our President and Chief Executive Officer, to provide remarks. Sanjay?
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Today, I will cover our strong fiscal 2026 performance, progress against our strategic initiatives, and outlook for fiscal 2027. For decades, Kennametal has created value for customers through materials science, innovation, applications engineering, manufacturing expertise, and industry-leading solutions. That foundation continued to serve us well in fiscal year 2026. Across the company, our teams delivered strong results while advancing the priorities that position Kennametal for long-term value creation. Sales reached $2.4 billion, up 19% year-over-year on an organic basis, supported by additional price realization and modest volume growth. We delivered strong earnings and margin performance and returned $71 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Adjusted EPS increased to $4.57 compared with $1.34 in the prior year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 26.9% from 15.2%.
Just as importantly, we continued to strengthen the business for the long term. We expanded business with key customers by leveraging the core capabilities that make Kennametal distinctive: materials science and process technology, application engineering expertise, and a secure global supply chain. We also broadened our growth platforms through wins tied to power generation for AI data centers, aerospace and defense programs, mining projects, and next-generation vehicle powertrains. Throughout the year, we navigated an unprecedented tungsten environment. We took pricing and other actions to offset the impact while maintaining operational discipline, liquidity, and balance sheet flexibility. That discipline also guided our lean transformation and structural cost initiatives. In fiscal 2026, we realized $27 million in restructuring savings and remain committed to delivering $110 million in savings by the end of fiscal year 2027. These actions are helping to strengthen Kennametal and create a more efficient, agile, and growth-focused organization.
Looking to fiscal year 2027, we remain encouraged by improving conditions and strong growth across several end markets and are committed to executing our growth initiatives. We will remain disciplined amid market uncertainty while focusing on above-market growth, continuous improvement, and the solutions our customers need. We have a strong team, differentiated capabilities, and a long track record of helping customers solve complex manufacturing and wear challenges. While there is more work to do, I'm confident in our ability to execute and create long-term value for shareholders. Thank you for your continued support of Kennametal. With that, I will hand the proceedings back to our Chairman.
Thank you very much, Sanjay. We will now adjourn the meeting and proceed to the questions and discussion portion of the agenda. During the meeting, share owners were able to submit written questions on the web portal. In accordance with the rules of conduct established for the meeting, only those questions that pertain to the business of the meeting or the company's business will be answered. We will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows. Jim Will of PricewaterhouseCoopers is also in attendance today if there are any questions to ask of our independent registered public accounting firm. The secretary will now facilitate reading the questions and comments received.
Mr. Chairman, no questions or comments were received.
Since there are no questions or comments, we will now conclude the 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareowners . We very much appreciate your attendance and support of the company. This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.