Vertiv Reports Strong First Quarter 2025 Results

First quarter 2025 operating profit of $291 million increased $88 million, or 43%, and adjusted operating profit of $337 million increased $88 million, or 35%, compared to first quarter 2024. Adjusted operating margin expanded 130 basis points to 16.5% in the first quarter 2025 compared to the first quarter 2024, driven by operational leverage on higher sales, price-cost tailwinds and productivity, partially offset by impacts from increased tariffs and regional mix.

"Vertiv's strong first quarter results demonstrate our continued momentum and reinforce our position for long-term sustainable growth," said Giordano Albertazzi, Vertiv's Chief Executive Officer. "We continue to see accelerated scaling of AI deployments across the data center market, with strong demand signals reinforcing both our near- and long-term growth outlook. The iGenius project, which involves delivering a complete AI infrastructure solution for one of Italy's leading AI technology companies, demonstrates our ability to rapidly deploy prefabricated AI solutions at scale. This project includes advanced cooling systems and power infrastructure specifically designed for high-density AI computing environments. Our partnership with NVIDIA and our reference designs for their GB200 and GB300 NVL72 platforms position Vertiv at the forefront of AI factory deployment at industrial scale. Assuming tariff rates on April 22, 2025 remain constant through year-end⁽²⁾, we believe that our diverse manufacturing footprint, operational flexibility, and commercial strategies will progressively lessen the tariff impact as the year progresses. Although the tariff environment remains fluid, our goal is to significantly mitigate the effect of tariffs as we enter 2026."

Dave Cote, Vertiv's Executive Chairman, added: "Vertiv's first quarter results demonstrate how well the team is executing in an increasingly complex environment. The focus on operational excellence and high-performance culture is delivering strong results. Our operational and commercial improvements over the past three years have positioned us well to effectively manage through the tariff environment and navigate these challenges. While we're seeing heightened demand in the market, particularly in AI infrastructure, what is most exciting is that we are still in the early stages of unlocking Vertiv's full potential. The team's relentless focus on execution, and ability to keep customers future-ready through this rapid market evolution, positions us well to create substantial long-term value for our shareholders as this market continues to expand and transform."

Adjusted Free Cash Flow⁽¹⁾ and Liquidity

Net cash generated by operating activities in first quarter 2025 was $303 million and adjusted free cash flow was $265 million, an increase of $166 million and $164 million respectively from first quarter 2024. First quarter 2025 adjusted free cash flow performance was driven by higher adjusted operating profit, trade working capital improvements and lower interest which were partially offset by an increase in cash taxes and capital expenditures. The 2025 forecast for capital expenditures is still expected to be approximately $275 million, or ~3.0% of sales, to support the strong growth trajectory.

Liquidity remained strong at $2.3 billion and net leverage was approximately 0.8x at the end of first quarter 2025. Vertiv announced that Fitch Ratings, Inc. ("Fitch") has assigned a first-time rating of BBB- with a Stable outlook to Vertiv Holdings Co and Vertiv Group Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Vertiv Holdings Co. We believe Vertiv's strong business profile, market leadership, resilient balance sheet and prudent financial policy supports Investment Grade credit ratings and Vertiv remains committed to a net leverage target of 1.0x – 2.0x.

Updated Full Year and Second Quarter 2025 Guidance

The data center market continues to show robust momentum as evidenced by our pipeline growth and strong AI-driven demand. The company continues to invest in ER&D and capacity expansion to support the growing needs of the industry, particularly in AI infrastructure deployments. The tariff situation remains fluid, but we are proactively working to mitigate the impact with supply chain countermeasures, production flexibility and commercial actions. Our guidance reflects the potential impacts of the tariff rates existing as of April 22, 2025, and assumes those rates continue throughout 2025⁽²⁾. Our guidance reflects this assumption as well as our estimates of likely outcomes, based on current information and the planned countermeasures we expect to implement. 

First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call

Vertiv's management team will discuss the Company's results during a conference call on Wednesday, April 23, starting at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. The call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding Vertiv's financial and operating results. A webcast of the live conference call will be available for interested parties to listen to by going to the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at investors.vertiv.com. A slide presentation will be available before the call and will be posted to the website, also at investors.vertiv.com. A replay of the conference call will also be available for 30 days following the webcast.

About Vertiv Holdings Co

Vertiv (NYSE: VRT) brings together hardware, software, analytics and ongoing services to enable its customers' vital applications to run continuously, perform optimally and grow with their business needs. Vertiv solves the most important challenges facing today's data centers, communication networks and commercial and industrial facilities with a portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network. Headquartered in Westerville, Ohio, USA, Vertiv does business in more than 130 countries. For more information, and for the latest news and content from Vertiv, visit vertiv.com.

Category: Financial News

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Financial information included in this release has been prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"). Vertiv has included certain non-GAAP financial measures in this news release, as indicated above, that may not be directly comparable to other similarly titled measures used by other companies and therefore may not be comparable among companies. These non-GAAP financial measures include organic net sales growth (including on a segment basis), adjusted operating profit, adjusted operating margin, adjusted diluted EPS and adjusted free cash flow, which management believes provides investors with useful supplemental information to evaluate the Company's ongoing operations and to compare with past and future periods. Management also uses certain non-GAAP measures internally for forecasting, budgeting and measuring its operating performance. These measures should be viewed as supplementing, and not as an alternative or substitute for, the Company's financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Pursuant to the requirements of Regulation G, Vertiv has provided reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.

Information reconciling certain forward-looking GAAP measures to non-GAAP measures related to second quarter and full-year 2025 guidance, including organic net sales growth, adjusted free cash flow and adjusted operating margin, is not available without unreasonable effort due to high variability, complexity and uncertainty with respect to forecasting and quantifying certain amounts that are necessary for such reconciliations. For those reasons, we are unable to compute the probable significance of the unavailable information, which could have a potentially unpredictable, and potentially significant, impact on our future GAAP financial results.

See "Reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP Financial Measures" in this release for Vertiv's reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.

Cautionary Note Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This news release, and other statements that Vertiv may make in connection therewith, may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to Vertiv's future financial or business performance, strategies or expectations, and as such are not historical facts. This includes, without limitation, statements regarding Vertiv's financial position, capital structure, indebtedness, business strategy and plans and objectives of Vertiv management for future operations, as well as statements regarding growth, anticipated demand for our products and services and our business prospects during 2025, as well as expected impacts from our pricing actions, and our guidance for second quarter and full year 2025 and statements regarding tariffs, global trade conflict and any actions we may take in response thereto. These statements constitute projections, forecasts and forward-looking statements, and are not guarantees of performance. Vertiv cautions that forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which change over time. Such statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. When used in this news release, words such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "possible," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "strive," "would" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking.

The forward-looking statements contained in this release are based on current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects on Vertiv. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting Vertiv will be those that Vertiv has anticipated. Vertiv undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond Vertiv's control) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of the assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Vertiv has previously disclosed risk factors in its Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") reports, including those set forth in the Vertiv 2024 Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 18, 2025. These risk factors and those identified elsewhere in this release, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from historical performance and include, but are not limited to: risks relating to the continued growth of our customers' markets; long sales cycles for certain Vertiv products and solutions as well as unpredictable placing or cancelling of customer orders; failure to realize sales expected from our backlog of orders and contracts; disruption of our customer's orders or the markets; less favorable contractual terms with large customers; risks associated with governmental contracts; failure to mitigate risks associated with long-term fixed price contracts; competition in the industry in which we operate; failure to obtain performance and other guarantees from financial institutions; failure to properly manage supply chain, difficulties with third-party manufacturers and increases in costs of material, freight and/or labor, and changes in the costs of production; competition in the infrastructure technologies; risks associated with information technology disruption or cyber-security incidents; risks associated with the implementation and enhancement of information systems; failure to realize the expected benefit from any rationalization, restructuring and improvement efforts; disruption of, or changes in, Vertiv's independent sales representatives, distributors and original equipment manufacturers; increase of variability in our effective tax rate costs or liabilities associated with product liability due to global operations subjecting us to income and other taxes in the U.S. and numerous foreign entities; the global scope of Vertiv's operations, especially in emerging markets; failure to benefit from future significant corporate transactions; risks associated with Vertiv's sales and operations in emerging markets including economic, political and production level risk; risks associated with future legislation and regulation of Vertiv's customers' markets both in the United States and abroad; our ability to comply with various laws and regulations including but not limited to, laws and regulations relating to data protection and data privacy; failure to properly address legal compliance issues, particularly those related to imports/exports, anti-corruption laws, and foreign operations; risks associated with foreign trade policy, including tariffs and global trade conflict and any actions we may take in response thereto; risks associated with litigation or claims against the Company, including the risk of adverse outcomes to any legal claims and proceedings; our ability to protect or enforce our proprietary rights on which our business depends; third party intellectual property infringement claims; liabilities associated with environmental, health and safety matters; failure to achieve environmental, social and governance goals; failure to realize the value of goodwill and intangible assets; exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; failure to remediate material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting; our level of indebtedness and the ability to incur additional indebtedness; our ability to comply with the covenants and restrictions contained in our credit agreements, including restrictive covenants that restrict operational flexibility; our ability to comply with the covenants and restrictions contained in our credit agreements is not fully within our control; our ability to access funding through capital markets; resales of Vertiv securities may cause volatility in the market price of our securities; our organizational documents contain provisions that may discourage unsolicited takeover proposals; our certificate of incorporation includes a forum selection clause, which could discourage or limit stockholders' ability to make a claim against it; the ability of our subsidiaries to pay dividends; factors relating to the business, operations and financial performance of Vertiv and its subsidiaries, including: global economic weakness and uncertainty; our ability to attract, train and retain key members of our leadership team and other qualified personnel; the adequacy of our insurance coverage; fluctuations in interest rates materially affecting our financial results and increasing the risk our counterparties default in our interest rate hedges; our incurrence of significant costs and devotion of substantial management time as a result of operating as a public company; and other risks and uncertainties indicated in Vertiv's SEC reports or documents filed or to be filed with the SEC by Vertiv. Forward-looking statements included in this news release speak only as of the date of this news release or any earlier date specified for such statements. All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to Vertiv or persons acting on Vertiv's behalf may be qualified in their entirety by this Cautionary Note Concerning Forward-Looking Statements.

For investor inquiries, please contact:

Lynne Maxeiner

Vice President, Global Treasury & Investor Relations

Vertiv

E: lynne.maxeiner@vertiv.com

For media inquiries, please contact:

Brianna Rabe

Ruder Finn for Vertiv

E: brianna.rabe@ruderfinn.com

Source: Vertiv Holdings Co 

Reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP Financial Measures

To supplement this news release, we have included certain non-GAAP financial measures in the format of performance metrics. Management believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide investors with additional meaningful financial information that should be considered when assessing our underlying business performance and trends. Further, management believes these non-GAAP financial measures also enhance investors' ability to compare period-to-period financial results. Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed in addition to, and not as an alternative for, the company's reported results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Our non-GAAP financial measures do not represent a comprehensive basis of accounting. Therefore, our non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. Reconciliations of each of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP information are also included. Management uses these non-GAAP financial measures in making financial, operating, compensation and planning decisions and in evaluating the company's performance. Disclosing these non-GAAP financial measures allows investors and management to view our operating results excluding the impact of items that are not reflective of the underlying operating performance.

Vertiv's non-GAAP financial measures include:

• Adjusted operating profit (loss), which represents operating profit (loss), adjusted to exclude amortization of intangibles;
• Adjusted operating margin, which represents adjusted operating profit (loss) divided by net sales;
• Organic net sales growth, which represents the change in net sales adjusted to exclude the impacts of foreign currency exchange rate;
• Adjusted free cash flow, which represents net cash provided by (used for) operating activities adjusted to exclude capital expenditures and investments in capitalized software; and
• Adjusted diluted EPS, which represents diluted earnings per share adjusted to exclude amortization of intangibles and change in warranty liability.

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SOURCE Vertiv Holdings Co