Badger Meter charts end-to-end course for smarter wastewater networks. Published by Badger Meter Partner organisation Recent strategic moves by Badger Meter, including the $185 million acquisition of SmartCover(R) Systems and the $100 million acquisition of UK-based UDlive, have further positioned the company as a global leader in sewer line monitoring. Combined with its established portfolio of flow measurement, water quality sensing and automation technology now being marshalled to support Europe's emerging fourth treatment stage, Badger Meter is building one of the most comprehensive intelligence layers ever assembled for municipal wastewater networks. Two transformative acquisitions, SmartCover Systems and UDlive, have given Badger Meter a clear global lead in sewer line monitoring Municipal wastewater networks are facing a convergence of pressures that few utility executives could have anticipated a decade ago. Ageing pipelines are exceeding their design life. Climate-driven rainfall is overwhelming combined sewers and pushing untreated discharges into rivers and coastal waters. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are tightening tolerance for sanitary sewer overflows and emerging contaminants alike. And operating budgets, squeezed by inflation and workforce shortages, no longer stretch to meet the inspections and high-frequency cleaning schedules that once provided a margin of safety. Against that backdrop, the question is no longer whether utilities should digitalise their wastewater operations, but how quickly, and which partners can help them connect the disparate pieces. Badger Meter (NYSE: BMI) has answered with a sequence of moves that amount to one of the sector's most coherent technology plays. Two transformative acquisitions, SmartCover Systems in the United States and UDlive in the United Kingdom, have given the company a clear global lead in sewer line monitoring, while its sensing, flow measurement and automation portfolio is helping European utilities prepare for the fourth purification stage. A connected platform for the full water cycle. SmartCover Systems' acquisition makes Badger Meter the owner of the most established collection system monitoring platform in the US The foundation is BlueEdge(R), the company's complete solutions offering. The hardware-enabled software suite delivers a coordinating layer that pulls signals from across the network: meters, level sensors, gas detectors, water quality probes, pumps and valves, into a common analytical environment. That matters because the operational questions facing utilities are no longer confined to a single asset. A surge in inflow during a storm ripples from maintenance holes into lift stations, rising sewer levels, elevating hydrogen sulfide and hydraulic load at the treatment plant. Without a unified view, each team responds in isolation. To move toward proactive maintenance, high-resolution data visibility gives operators the context needed to make better decisions. SmartCover and the rise of real-time collection awareness. The $185 million acquisition of SmartCover Systems, completed in January 2025, makes Badger Meter the owner of the most established collection system monitoring platform in North America. Its maintenance hole-mounted sensors monitor sewer levels around the clock, building a behavioural baseline for each location and automatically alerting utilities when conditions drift toward a spill. Paired with the company's analytics software, the same hardware helps operators predict and prevent overflows, locate inflow and infiltration, detect intrusion, reduce high-frequency cleanings and control toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide, without the cost or safety exposure of confined space inspection. The strategic logic was articulated by Kenneth C. Bockhorst, Chairman, President and CEO of Badger Meter: "SmartCover fits directly into our BlueEdge suite of hardware-enabled software solutions, enhancing the scope of data, information and analytics that collectively strengthen our customers' water management practices... SmartCover is the market leader in the fast-growing stormwater management space." UDlive, a British leader, joins the platform. If SmartCover gave Badger Meter a commanding position in the United States, the agreement to acquire UDlive, a UK-based provider of low-power, easy-to-install maintenance hole sensors paired with proprietary visualisation and analytics software, extends that leadership across the Atlantic. The $100 million transaction, plus contingent consideration, combines two of the most credible names in the field. UDlive reported $22 million of revenue in fiscal 2026 and has compiled a 90% tender success rate since its launch in 2017, with technology assessment scores routinely placing it at the top of utility procurement scorecards in the United Kingdom. Bockhorst connected the two acquisitions explicitly: "UDlive is a strong strategic fit with our BlueEdge portfolio and is a natural addition to SmartCover. Together, they will create an industry-leading global portfolio of sewer line monitoring capabilities, offering a range of solutions across a broader set of use cases and geographies... This acquisition further advances our strategy of providing utilities with hardware-enabled software solutions that deliver actionable intelligence across the water cycle." Philip Bennett, Managing Director of UDlive, framed the engineering complementarity: "SmartCover and UDlive address complementary aspects of sewer line monitoring, and together we can deliver greater value to utilities seeking remote, reliable and relevant solutions to manage increasingly complex wastewater networks." In practice, that means utilities in the UK, Europe and selected international markets will have access to a wider spectrum of deployment options, with Badger Meter expected to leverage its global footprint to accelerate UDlive's adoption beyond British shores. Europe's fourth treatment stage, the micropollutant pivot. While the sewer monitoring story is about getting ahead of problems before they reach the treatment plant, an equally significant transformation is unfolding inside the plant. The EU's revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive obliges plants serving 100,000 population equivalents or more to install a fourth treatment stage by 31 December 2035, with smaller plants between 10,000 and 100,000 PE following by 2040 where micropollutant risk is elevated. The directive also requires plants to operate on an energy- and climate-neutral basis by 2040 and introduces an extended producer responsibility scheme asking pharmaceutical and cosmetics manufacturers to contribute to the cost of removing their products from the wastewater stream. The EU's revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive obliges plants serving 100,000 population equivalents or more to install a fourth treatment stage by 31 December 2035 The technologies involved, activated carbon adsorption, ozonation and advanced membrane filtration, are mature, but operating them economically is anything but trivial. Dosing must respond to fluctuating contaminant concentrations, ozone generation must be balanced against power consumption, and chemical and energy costs must be continuously optimised against effluent quality. This is where the instrumentation logic underpinning BlueEdge's collection system work becomes decisive at the plant gate. Electromagnetic flow meters from Badger Meter monitor total flow through the works with robust accuracy, while its ultrasonic meters provide the precision required for chemical dosing. Likewise, optical sensors using s::can technology deliver real-time readings of organic load, turbidity, pH and other indicator parameters, enabling operators to react to events within minutes rather than hours. Advanced data and analytics platforms turn these raw signals into the audit-ready reporting the new directive demands. Badger Meter is no longer simply a manufacturer of meters and sensors; it is positioning itself as the connective tissue of intelligent water infrastructure. The same data architecture that warns a North American utility about a developing overflow at three in the morning is being adapted to help a German plant optimise activated carbon dosing during a pharmaceutical load spike. The engineering ethos behind UDlive's high tender win rate in the UK, low-power hardware paired with software operators actually want to open, is being applied to lift station telemetry and plant automation across continents. For utility leaders, the hard work of the next 15 years is not about replacing pipes faster. It is about extracting more performance from assets already in the ground while meeting tighter discharge limits with leaner teams. That requires continuous visibility, intelligent automation and reliable analytics across the conveyance and treatment system, exactly the capability set Badger Meter has assembled. As Bockhorst has previously stated, the company's mission is to deliver actionable intelligence across the water cycle. Increasingly, that is the operating reality that municipal wastewater systems are quietly moving toward.

Badger Meter reported a 7.5% organic sales decline in Q2 2026, attributed to lower AMI-related product revenue due to project pacing dynamics. However, sequential organic growth of 9% was driven by initial shipments for major awarded projects, including PRASA. Flow instrumentation sales grew 6% year-over-year, supported by demand in data centre applications. Operating margins were maintained through cost containment measures despite lower volumes. The company reaffirmed its full-year 2026 organic revenue guidance of roughly flat compared to 2025, with growth heavily weighted towards Q4. Management expects free cash flow conversion exceeding 100% of net earnings as elevated inventory levels normalise. The UDLive acquisition will contribute approximately $5 million in annual intangible asset amortisation starting in 2026. Management flagged increasing cost pressures for electronic components driven by AI and data centre infrastructure demand.

Badger Meter reported second-quarter sales of $222.3 million, down 7% year-over-year. Utility water sales declined 8%, whilst flow instrumentation sales rose 6%. Operating earnings fell 12% year-over-year, with margins down 110 basis points to 17.7%. Diluted earnings per share decreased 13% to $1.02, compared with $1.17 in the prior year period. Free cash flow dropped to $21.9 million from $40.6 million in the same quarter last year. The company repurchased 204,000 shares for $25.3 million, leaving $90 million available under its authorisation. Despite the decline, Badger Meter reported 9% sequential sales growth over the first quarter. The company renewed its $150 million credit facility for five years, currently undrawn. Management reaffirmed expectations for improving sequential results through year-end.