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On August 3, JBT Marel Corporation (NYSE:JBTM) reported second-quarter 2026 results that read as two different companies stapled together. Orders topped $1 billion, pushing the book-to-bill ratio to 1.05x and lifting backlog to $1.54 billion. But net income of $28 million included a $33 million non-cash impairment charge tied to a 2021 acquisition, a reminder that not every dollar in this business is showing up cleanly on the bottom line.
The order book is the headline here. JBT Marel booked $1.03 billion in orders during the quarter, and revenue of $981 million grew 5% year over year, with about 2 percentage points of that coming from foreign exchange translation. Adjusted EBITDA rose to $168 million, up $12 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin improved 40 basis points to 17.1%. Diluted earnings per share jumped to $0.54 from $0.07 a year earlier, while adjusted EPS climbed to $1.95 from $1.49.
The Protein Solutions segment did the heavy lifting, with revenue up 11% to $467 million and segment adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 350 basis points to 24%. Management also pointed to $60 million in expected in-year cost synergy savings for 2026 and kept its full-year revenue guidance of $3.99 billion to $4.065 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin guidance of 17% to 17.5% unchanged. The company's balance sheet moved in the right direction too, with net debt to trailing twelve-month adjusted EBITDA at 2.47x, and it repurchased about 200,000 shares for $26 million under its $200 million buyback authorization.
The Prepared Food and Beverage Solutions segment told a different story. Revenue there was flat at $514 million despite a 2 percentage point foreign exchange tailwind, and segment adjusted EBITDA margin slipped 70 basis points to 17.5%. The company attributed the shortfall to logistics constraints and productivity inefficiencies as it works through backlog-to-revenue conversion. Layered on top of that operational friction was the $33 million non-cash impairment charge, which the company said was non-recurring but which still dragged GAAP diluted EPS guidance for the full year down to a range of $4.20 to $4.70 and net income margin guidance to 5.5% to 6.0%.
Management also flagged higher inflationary costs as an ongoing headwind it is trying to offset through pricing actions. For the full year, JBT Marel still expects to absorb $167 million in acquisition-related amortization and depreciation, $32 million in M&A-related costs, and $20 million in restructuring costs, on top of the impairment already booked. And at 2.47x, leverage is sitting just below the top of the company's own 2.0x to 2.5x target range, leaving less room to maneuver than the balance sheet headline suggests.
Hedge fund ownership fell from 40 funds to 33 in the most recent quarter, a drop that reads as institutional buyers stepping back rather than piling in. Short interest sits at 9.24% of float, a level that suggests a real bear camp has formed around the stock. JBT Marel trades at a forward P/E of 12.69 as of September 4, a multiple that does not appear to be pricing in much of the growth implied by that swelling backlog. A cheap earnings multiple sitting next to elevated short interest and a shrinking hedge fund count is exactly where the disagreement about this stock lives right now.
JBT Marel's second quarter leaves two threads dangling. Orders and backlog point to a company gathering momentum, and management reiterated its full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA margin guidance as of August 3, 2026. Yet the Prepared Food and Beverage Solutions segment still has to work through the logistics constraints that held back its results, and leverage sitting just below the top of the target range leaves less cushion than it used to. Whether that backlog converts into clean revenue growth in the back half of 2026 will say more about this story than the headline order numbers already have.
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