ZWS · Read the filing

zws-20211231

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, DC 20549

_________________________________________________

FORM 10-K

(Mark one)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021

For the transition period from to

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ZURN WATER SOLUTIONS CORPORATION

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

(Address of Principal Executive Offices) (Zip Code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (855) 480-5050

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of Each Class Trading Symbol(s) Name of Each Exchange on Which Registered

Common Stock $.01 par value ZWS The New York Stock Exchange

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

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Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act. Yes ☐No☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes☒ No ☐

Indicate by checkmark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§229.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer," "smaller reporting company" and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Large accelerated filer☒ Accelerated filer ☐ Non-accelerated filer ☐ Smaller reporting company ☐ Emerging growth company ☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report.☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

As of June 30, 2021, the aggregate market value of the shares of common stock (based upon the $50.04 closing price on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, 2021, the last trading day of the registrant's second fiscal quarter) held by non-affiliates (excludes shares reported as beneficially owned by then-current directors and executive officers - does not constitute an admission as to affiliate status) was approximately $6.1 billion.

As of February 4, 2022, there were 125,782,456 shares of common stock outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Part III of this Report on Form 10-K incorporates by reference certain information from the Proxy Statement for the Registrant's annual meeting of stockholders, to be held on or about May 5, 2022, which Proxy Statement will be subsequently filed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I

Item 1. Business 5

Item 1A. Risk Factors 12

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments 21

Item 2. Properties 22

Item 3. Legal Proceedings 22

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosure 22

Information about our Executive Officers 23

Part II

Item 6. [Reserved] 25

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk 41

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data 42

Item 9A. Controls and Procedures 90

Item 9B. Other Information 90

Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections 90

Part III

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance 91

Item 11. Executive Compensation 91

Item 14. Principal Accounting Fees and Services 91

Part IV

Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules 92

PART I

EXPLANATORY NOTE REGARDING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

Following the end of our fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, we transitioned to a December 31 fiscal year-end date. As a result, this report on Form 10-K includes financial information for the transition period from April 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020 (the “Transition Period”). Prior to the Transition Period, our fiscal year was the year ending on March 31 of the corresponding calendar year. For example, our fiscal year 2020, or fiscal 2020, was the period from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020. Our fiscal 2021 commenced on January 1, 2021 and includes the period from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021. Within this report, we compare financial results for the Transition Period, which are audited, with the financial results for the nine month period ended December 31, 2019, which are unaudited. In addition, we compare the financial results for fiscal 2021, which are audited, with the financial results for the twelve month period ended December 31, 2020, which are unaudited.

CAUTIONARY NOTICE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This report includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include statements we make concerning our plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events, future revenues or performance, capital expenditures, financing needs and other information that is not historical information and, in particular, appear in Items 1, 1A and 7 hereof. When used in this report, the words "estimates," "expects," "anticipates," "projects," "forecasts," "plans," "believes," "foresees," "seeks," "likely," "may," "might," "will," "should," "goal," "target" or "intends" and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of any such words) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based upon information available to us on the date of this report.

These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, among other things, the matters discussed in this report in the Items identified above. Some of the factors that we believe could affect our results include:

•our competitive environment;

•general economic and business conditions, market factors and our exposure to customers in cyclical industries;

•increases in cost of our raw materials, including as a result of tariffs, trade wars and other trade protection matters, and our possible inability to increase product prices to offset such increases;

•the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on our business, financial condition, employees, customers, distributors and supply chain, including the impact related to governmental actions; Covid-19 may, among other impacts, heighten the effects on our business, results of operations and financial condition of the other risk factors identified herein;

•performance, and potential failure, of our information and data security systems, including potential cyber security threats and breaches;

•the costs and uncertainties related to strategic acquisitions or divestitures or the integration of recent and future acquisitions into our business;

•the effect of local, national and international economic, credit and capital market conditions on the economy in general, and on our customers and the industries in which we operate in particular;

•the loss of any significant customer;

•dependence on independent distributors;

•the impact of our indebtedness;

•changes in technology and manufacturing techniques;

•impact of weather on the seasonality of the demand for our products;

•impact of climate change on our operations and demand for our products;

•the costs of environmental compliance and/or the imposition of liabilities under environmental including climate, health and safety laws and regulations;

•changes in governmental laws and regulations, or the interpretation or enforcement thereof, including laws and regulations addressing climate change, environmental matters and the transition to a reduced-carbon economy;

•legislative, regulatory and legal developments involving taxes;

•the costs associated with asbestos claims and other potential product liability;

•our access to available and reasonable financing on a timely basis;

•reliance on intellectual property;

•work stoppages by unionized employees;

•loss of key personnel and a failure to effectively manage human capital resources;

•changes in pension funding requirements;

•potential impairment of goodwill and intangible assets;

•terrorism, conflicts, wars, as well as other events outside our control, including other outbreaks of infectious diseases; and

•the other factors described in this report, including those discussed in "Risk Factors" in Part I, Item 1A.

There are likely other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the results referred to in the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements attributable to us apply only as of the date of this report and are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements included in this report. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.

ITEM 1. BUSINESS.

Our Company

As previously disclosed, on October 4, 2021, Zurn Water Solutions Corporation (formerly known as Rexnord Corporation) (“Zurn,” "we," "us," "our," or the “Company”) completed a Reverse Morris Trust tax-free spin-off transaction (the “Spin-off Transaction”) in which (i) substantially all the assets and liabilities of our Process & Motion Control business were transferred to a newly created subsidiary, Land Newco, Inc. (“Land”), (ii) the shares of Land were distributed to our stockholders pro rata, and (iii) Land was merged with a subsidiary of Regal Rexnord Corporation (formerly known as Regal Beloit Corporation), in which the stock of Land was converted into a certain number of shares of Regal Rexnord Corporation in accordance with the exchange ratio. Following completion of the Spin-Off Transaction, we changed our name to “Zurn Water Solutions Corporation” and the ticker symbol for our shares of common stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange was changed to “ZWS”.

Prior to the completion of the Spin-Off Transaction our business consisted of two platforms: Process & Motion Control and Water Management. The Process & Motion Control platform designed, manufactured, marketed and serviced a comprehensive range of specified, highly-engineered mechanical components used within complex systems. Following the Spin-Off Transaction, the operating results and financial position of the Process & Motion Control platform are reported as discontinued operations within our consolidated financial statements, as the divestiture represented a strategic shift that had a major impact on our operations and financial results.

After completion of the Spin-Off Transaction, Zurn is a growth-oriented, pure-play water management business that designs, procures, manufactures, and markets what we believe is the broadest sustainable product portfolio of specification-driven water management solutions to improve health, human safety and the environment. Our product portfolio includes professional grade water safety and control, flow systems and hygienic and environmental products for public and private spaces that deliver superior value to building owners, positively impact the environment and human hygiene and reduce product installation time. Zurn's heritage of innovation and specification have allowed us to provide highly-engineered, mission-critical solutions to customers for decades and affords us the privilege of having long-term, valued relationships with market leaders. We operate in a disciplined way and the Zurn Business System (“ZBS”), described below, is our operating philosophy. Grounded in the spirit of continuous improvement, ZBS creates a scalable, process-based framework that focuses on driving superior customer satisfaction and financial results by targeting world-class operating performance throughout all aspects of our business.

Zurn is a leading provider of specification-driven water management solutions to the multi-billion dollar construction market of primarily commercial and institutional buildings and to a lesser extent to the waterworks and multi-family residential construction markets.

Our strategy is to build Zurn around a strategic platform that participates in end markets with sustainable growth characteristics where we are, or have the opportunity to become, the industry leader. We have a track record of acquiring and integrating companies and expect to continue to pursue strategic acquisitions that will broaden our product lines, allow us to move into adjacent markets and expand our geographic presence.

The demand for our products is primarily driven by new commercial and institutional building construction, the retrofit of existing structures (to make them more energy and water efficient) and, to a lesser extent, new infrastructure and multi-family residential construction. We believe we have become a market leader in the industry by developing innovative products that meet stringent third-party regulatory, building, and plumbing code requirements and by subsequently achieving specification of our products into projects and applications.

We are led by an experienced, high-caliber management team that employs ZBS as a proven operating philosophy to drive excellence and world-class performance in all aspects of our business, and which includes our "Voice of the Customer" process to promote superior customer satisfaction. Our physical footprint encompasses 20 principal manufacturing and warehouse facilities located primarily in North America.

ZBS

ZBS creates a scalable, process-based framework that focuses on driving superior customer satisfaction and financial results by targeting world-class operating performance throughout all aspects of our business. ZBS is based on the following principles: (1) strategy deployment (a long-term strategic planning process that determines annual improvement priorities and the actions necessary to achieve those priorities); (2) measuring our performance based on customer satisfaction, or the "Voice of the Customer;" (3) involvement of all our associates in the execution of our strategy; and (4) a culture that embraces Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. We believe applying ZBS can yield superior growth, quality, delivery and operating costs relative to our competition, resulting in enhanced profitability and ultimately the creation of stockholder value. As we have applied ZBS over the past several years, we have experienced improvements in growth, productivity, cost reduction and asset efficiency and believe there are opportunities to continue to improve our performance as we continue to apply ZBS.

Our Business

Zurn designs, procures, manufactures, and markets what we believe is the broadest sustainable product portfolio of specification-driven water management solutions to improve health, human safety and the environment. Our product portfolio includes professional grade water safety and control, flow systems and hygienic and environmental products for public and private spaces that deliver superior value to building owners, positively impact the environment and human hygiene and reduce product installation time. Our products are marketed and sold under widely recognized brand names, including Zurn®, Wilkins®, Green Turtle®, World Dryer®, StainlessDrains.comTM, JUST®, Hadrian® and Wade®.

Over the past century, Zurn has established itself as an innovator and leading designer, manufacturer and distributor of highly engineered products and solutions that control the flow, delivery, treatment and conservation of water as well as human hygiene to and within institutional and commercial buildings and, to a lesser extent, for waterworks and multi-family residential applications. The institutional construction end users include education, healthcare, and government segments. The commercial construction end users includes office/warehouse, lodging, retail, dining, and sports arenas segments. The waterworks end users include, municipal water and wastewater and transportation segments. The demand for our products is primarily driven by new commercial and institutional building construction, the retrofit of existing structures (to make them more energy and water efficient) and, to a lesser extent, new waterworks and multi-family residential construction.

Our products are principally specification-driven as they deliver superior value to building owners, positively impact the environment and human hygiene and reduce product installation time while meeting the stringent county-specific regulatory, building, and plumbing code requirements. The majority of these stringent testing and regulatory approval processes are completed through the Foundation for Cross-Connection Control and Hydraulic Research at the University of Southern California, the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials ("IAPMO"), the National Sanitation Foundation ("NSF"), ASTM International ("ASTM") the Plumbing and Drainage Institute ("PDI"), the Underwriters Laboratories ("UL"), Factory Mutual ("FM") and the American Waterworks Association ("AWWA") prior to the commercialization of our products. In addition, our products are project-critical and typically represent a low percentage of the overall project cost. We believe these characteristics, coupled with our extensive distribution network, create a high level of end-user loyalty for our products and allow us to achieve specification of our products into projects and applications and maintain leading market shares in the majority of our product lines.

We utilize an extensive sales and marketing network spanning approximately 30 countries, which consists of approximately 1,600 independent sales representatives across 200 sales agencies. Specifically, it has been our experience that, once an architect, engineer, contractor, or owner has specified our product with satisfactory results, that person will generally continue to use our products in future projects. The inclusion of our products with project specifications, combined with our ability to innovate, engineer, and deliver products and systems that save time and money for engineers, architects, contractors and builders and has resulted in growing demand for our products. Our distribution model is predicated upon maintaining high product availability near our customers. We believe this model provides us with a competitive advantage as we can meet our customer demand with local inventory at significantly reduced lead times as compared with others in our industry.

Our Markets

We evaluate our competitive position in our markets based on available market data, relevant benchmarks compared to our relative group and industry trends. We generally do not participate in segments of our served markets that have been commoditized or in applications that do not require differentiation based on product quality, reliability and innovation. We serve a broad and diverse array of commercial and industrial end markets with solid fundamental long-term growth characteristics. We believe there continues to be long-term growth potential in our markets.

The markets in which we participate are relatively fragmented with competitors across a broad range of industries, sectors, and product lines. Although competition exists across all of our businesses, we do not believe that any one competitor directly competes with us across all of our product lines. We believe our served markets are growing long term at relatively strong rates, and that the growing demand for water conservation, quality, hygienic solutions and safety can potentially support

market growth above that of overall United States industrial production. We believe that we can continue to grow our platform long term at rates above the growth rate of the overall market and the growth rate of our competition, by focusing our efforts and resources towards end markets that have above-average growth characteristics.

We believe the areas in which we compete are tied to growth in commercial and institutional construction, as well as, to a lesser extent, waterworks. We believe these areas have significant long-term growth fundamentals. Historically, the commercial, institutional and waterworks construction sectors have been more stable and less vulnerable to down-cycles than the residential construction industry. Compared with residential construction cycles, downturns in waterworks, commercial and institutional construction have been shorter and less severe, and upturns have lasted longer and had higher peaks in terms of spending as well as units and square footage. In addition, we believe water management manufacturers with innovative products, like ours, are able to grow at a faster pace than the broader waterworks, commercial, and institutional construction markets, as well as mitigate cyclical downturns in market growth.

The industry's specification-driven end-markets require manufacturers to work closely with local engineers, architects, contractors and builders to design specific applications on a project-by-project basis. As a result, building and maintaining relationships with architects, engineers, contractors and builders, who specify products for use in construction projects, and having flexibility in design and product innovation are critical to compete effectively in these markets. Companies with a strong network of such relationships have a competitive advantage. Specifically, it has been our experience that, once an engineer, contractor, builder, or architect has specified our product with satisfactory results, they often will continue to use our products in future projects.

Our Products

Our products tend to be project-critical, highly-engineered and high value-add and typically are a low percentage of overall project cost. We believe the combination of these features can create a high level of end-user loyalty, reinforced by our investments in developing innovative new product solutions. Demand for these products is influenced by regulatory, building and plumbing code requirements. Many of our products must meet stringent county, state or municipal-specific regulatory, building, and plumbing code requirements prior to the commercialization of our products (such as IAPMO, NSF, UL, FM, PDI and AWWA). In addition, many of these products must meet detailed specifications set by water management engineers, architects, contractors and builders. Among our leading brands are Zurn® and Wilkins®.

Water Safety and Control Products

Our water safety and control products are sold under the Zurn and Wilkins brand names and encompass a wide range of valve and water distribution control products. Key valve products include backflow preventers, fire system valves, pressure reducing valves and thermostatic mixing valves. These highly specified and engineered flow control devices protect and control the potable water supply and emergency water supply within a building or site. Designed to meet the stringent requirements of independent test labs, such as the IAPMO, NSF, UL and FM, they are sold into commercial, institutional, and industrial new construction and retrofit applications as well as the fire protection, municipal water and wastewater and irrigation end markets.

Control solutions that protect human health and gravity drainage products that protect the environment are sold under the Zurn® brand and are typically required in the early stages of a construction or retrofit project, when potable water and non-potable water control and drainage systems are installed. Water control products include PEX piping, valves, fittings and installation tools. PEX tubing is manufactured from cross-linked polyethylene and is designed for high temperature and pressure fluid distribution piping applications for both potable water and radiant heating systems in the residential and nonresidential construction industries. These systems are engineered to meet stringent NSF and ASTM standards helping water professionals provide safe and efficient building and site water management solutions.

Flow Systems Products

Flow systems products are commonly installed within a building or on a site to manage storm water and wastewater. Specification drainage products within flow systems include point drains (such as roof drains and floor drains), hydrants, fixture carrier systems, and chemical drainage systems that are used to control storm water, process water and potable water in various commercial, institutional, industrial, civil and irrigation applications. Linear drainage systems are used to capture and direct storm water in a wide variety of commercial, institutional, industrial and transportation infrastructure applications. Our wastewater pre-treatment products include oil and grease interceptors and separators, acid neutralization systems and remote monitoring systems and are marketed under the Zurn® and Green Turtle® brands. Interceptors are used to separate and capture fats, oils, and greases from wastewater before it is discharged into the municipal wastewater collection system. Our proprietary designs are primarily fabricated from fiberglass reinforced polyester, which we believe is gaining market share from traditional concrete products due to its reliability, service life, ease of service, and lowest cost of ownership. Applications include restaurants and institutional foodservice operations, office buildings, hotels, entertainment venues, schools, grocery and convenience stores, airports, vehicle service garages, and fleet operations and maintenance facilities. Acid neutralization systems are primarily used in schools, hospitals and laboratories.

In fiscal 2020, we acquired substantially all the assets of East Creek Corporation (d/b/a StainlessDrains.com) ("StainlessDrains.com"), a leading manufacturer of highly specialized stainless steel drains for industries focused in foodservice, food and beverage production, retail, chemical, commercial, and amusement parks. This acquisition added complementary product lines to our existing product portfolio.

In fiscal 2021, we acquired substantially all of the assets of Advance Technology Solutions, LLC (d/b/a ATS GREASEwatch) ("ATS GREASEwatch"). ATS GREASEwatch, develops, manufactures and markets remote tank monitoring devices, alarms, software and services for various applications and provides technology to enhance and expand our current product offerings.

In addition, we expanded our high-quality flow systems portfolio during fiscal 2021 with the acquisition of the Wade Drains ("Wade") product line from McWane, Inc. The acquisition of the Wade product line leverages Zurn’s existing expertise in flow systems to expand our market coverage and offer an additional brand of drainage and environmental products.

Hygienic and Environmental Products

Hygienic and environmental products are typically required in the latter stages of a construction or retrofit project, when interior spaces are being outfitted with fixtures, valves and faucets. Zurn's hygienic and environmental products include primarily sensor-operated flush valves marketed under the Aquaflush®, AquaSense® and AquaVantage® brand names and heavy-duty commercial faucets marketed under the AquaSpec® brand name. Innovative water conserving fixtures are marketed under the EcoVantage® and Zurn One® brand names. These products are commonly used in office buildings, schools, hospitals, airports, sports facilities, convention centers, shopping malls, restaurants, and industrial production buildings. The Zurn One Systems® integrate valve and/or faucet products with fixtures into complete, easily customizable plumbing systems, and thus provide a valuable time and cost-saving means of delivering commercial and institutional bathroom fixtures. The EcoVantage® fixture systems promote water-efficiency, assists in achieving compliance with certain water conservation requirements, and generates savings for building owners in new construction and retrofit bathroom fixture installations.

In fiscal 2020, we acquired Just Manufacturing Company ("Just Manufacturing") a leading manufacturer of stainless steel sinks and plumbing fixtures primarily used in institutional and commercial end markets. In addition, during the Transition Period, we acquired substantially all of the assets of Hadrian Manufacturing Inc. and 100% of the stock of Hadrian, Inc. (collectively “Hadrian”) a leading manufacturer of restroom partition systems and lockers primarily used in institutional and commercial end markets. The combination of World Dryer’s eco-friendly hand dryers, Just Manufacturing's stainless steel product portfolio, Hadrian’s partition systems and Zurn's water-efficient hygienic and environmental products allows us to deliver what we believe is the most comprehensive hygienic and environmental content to new and existing buildings.

Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions are a critical part of the Zurn growth strategy. Our strategy is to grow strategically by acquiring leading companies in attractive markets with businesses that we believe will benefit from ZBS to increase customer satisfaction, revenue growth and operating margins. In our last three fiscal years, we have completed several acquisitions focused on expanding our product portfolio and presence in the end markets we serve; those acquisitions are further described below. The respective purchase prices for these transactions are stated net of cash acquired and exclude transaction costs.

•November 17, 2021 - We expanded our high-quality flow systems portfolio with the acquisition of the Wade product line from McWane, Inc. for a cash purchase price of $13.7 million. Founded in 1865, Wade manufactures a wide range of specified commercial flow systems products for customers across North America. The acquisition leverages Zurn’s existing expertise in flow systems to expand its market coverage and offer an additional brand of drainage and environmental products.

•April 16, 2021 - We acquired substantially all of the assets of Advance Technology Solutions, LLC (d/b/a ATS GREASEwatch) ("ATS GREASEwatch") for a cash purchase price of $4.5 million. ATS GREASEwatch develops, manufactures and markets remote tank monitoring devices, alarms, software and services for various applications and provides technology to enhance and expand our current product offerings and complements our existing product portfolio.

•December 11, 2020 - We acquired substantially all of the assets of Hadrian for a total cash purchase price of $101.3 million. Hadrian manufactures washroom partitions and lockers primarily used in institutional and commercial end markets and complements our existing product portfolio.

•January 28, 2020 - We acquired substantially all of the assets of Just Manufacturing for a cash purchase price of $59.4 million. Just Manufacturing manufactures stainless steel sinks and plumbing fixtures primarily used in institutional and commercial end markets and complements the offerings of our existing product portfolio.

•May 10, 2019 - We acquired substantially all of the assets of StainlessDrains.com, a manufacturer of stainless steel drains, grates and accessories for industrial and commercial end markets, for a cash purchase price of $24.8 million. StainlessDrains.com added complementary product lines to our existing product portfolio.

Customers

Our water safety and control, flow systems and hygienic and environmental products are sold for new construction, remodeling and retrofit applications to customers in commercial, institutional, waterworks and multi-family residential end markets and are distributed through independent sales representatives, plumbing wholesalers and industry-specific distributors in the waterworks, foodservice, industrial, janitorial, sanitation and siteworks industries. Our independent sales representatives work with engineers, architects, building owners and operators, contractors, and builders, to specify our water safety, quality, flow control and conservation products for their use and with wholesalers to assess and meet the needs of building contractors in construction projects. They also combine knowledge of our products’ installation methods and delivery availability with local market expertise to provide contractors with value-added service. We use approximately 1,600 independent sales representatives, along with a network of regional distribution centers and third-party warehouses, to provide our customers with same-day service and quick response times. Zurn® and Wilkins® benefit from strong brand recognition, which is enhanced by a strong propensity to replace "like-for-like" products.

In addition to our domestic manufacturing facilities, we maintain a global network of independent sources that manufacture high quality, lower-cost component parts for our products. These sources fabricate parts to our specifications using our proprietary designs, which enables us to focus on product engineering, assembly, testing and quality control. By closely monitoring these sources and through extensive product testing, we are able to maintain product quality and be a cost-competitive producer of commercial and institutional products.

Product Development

The majority of our new product development begins with our extensive "Voice of the Customer" operating philosophy. We have a team of approximately 90 engineers and technical employees who are organized by product line. Each of our product lines has technical staff responsible for product development and application support.

Zurn has approximately 150 active patents in the United States and approximately 70 foreign active patents as of December 31, 2021. Product innovation is crucial in the commercial and institutional plumbing products markets because new products must continually be developed to meet specifications and regulatory demands. Zurn's products are known in the industry for such innovation.

In fiscal 2018, we launched our digital strategy for a customer productivity platform based on the integration of innovative Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and e-commerce technologies with Zurn's leading portfolio of products. Our secure online portal, plumbSMARTTM, allows for real-time insights from Zurn Connected Products including wireless monitoring of usage trends, water consumption, possible issues and alerts through digitally-connected product solutions that can be retrofitted to the installed base of our products. This information is used by our customers’ operations and maintenance staff through their facility and automation control systems and cloud-based portals to minimize unplanned system downtime and improve the productivity and safety of their operations.

Suppliers and Raw Materials

The principal materials used in our manufacturing processes are commodities and components available from numerous sources. The key materials used in our manufacturing activities include: brass, castings, copper, zinc, forgings, plate steel, high-performance engineered plastic and resin. Our global sourcing strategy is to maintain alternate sources of supply for our important materials and components wherever possible.

Historically, we have been able to successfully source materials, and consequently are not dependent on a single source for any significant raw material or component. As a result, we believe there is a readily available supply of materials in sufficient quantity from a variety of sources to serve both our short-term and long-term requirements. Additionally, we have not experienced any significant shortage of our key materials and have not historically engaged in hedging transactions for commodity supplies. We generally purchase our materials on the open market.

Backlog

Our backlog of unshipped orders was approximately $70 million and $36 million as of December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020, respectively. As of December 31, 2021, our backlog is all expected to ship during the year ending December 31, 2022. See Item 1A Risk Factors of this report for more information on the risks associated with backlog.

Seasonality

Demand for our products is primarily driven by commercial and institutional building activity, remodeling and retrofit opportunities, and to a lesser extent, new home starts as well as waterworks expansion. Accordingly, weather has an impact on

the seasonality of certain end markets. With the exception of our remodeling and retrofit opportunities, weather is an important variable as it significantly impacts construction. Spring and summer months in the United States and Canada represent the main construction season for increased construction in the commercial, institutional and waterworks markets, as well as new housing starts. As a result, sales generally decrease slightly in the third and fourth quarters as compared to the first two quarters of the calendar year.

Our business also depends upon general economic conditions and other market factors beyond our control, and we serve customers in cyclical industries. As a result, our operating results have been, and in the future likely will be, negatively affected during economic downturns. See Item 1A Risk Factors of this report for information on the risks associated with general economic conditions.

Human Capital Management

As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 1,300 employees, of whom approximately 900 were employed in the United States. Approximately 110 of our United States employees are represented by labor unions. We are currently party to two collective bargaining agreements in the United States with expiration dates in June 2022 and October 2024. We believe we have a strong relationship with our employees, including those represented by labor unions.

Zurn strives to attract, retain and develop the talent necessary to meet goals. Our Human Resources programs are designed to, among other aims, foster diversity and inclusion, develop talent for critical roles and leadership positions, reward and support associates through competitive pay and benefits, and promote the health and safety of our associates.

Diversity and Inclusion: We are committed to fostering, cultivating and preserving a culture of diversity and inclusion where our associates are engaged and fulfilled. We recognize and value our associates for the unique perspectives they bring to Zurn – from different ages, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, veteran status and abilities, including individuals who bring diverse opinions, experience and leadership styles to their work at Zurn. Inclusion is built into our key human resources programs and processes. We believe this collective diversity makes our business stronger.

Training and Talent Development: We are committed to having a workplace that fosters learning, development and innovation. Our leadership team conducts a robust program of employee engagement and we have invested in the personal and professional development of our employees. We monitor a variety of metrics to ensure the health of our company culture and alignment with our values and strategic business priorities. Each year, we survey our employees to better understand what matters most to them. We also strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits for our associates.

Health and Safety: The safety of our associates is a top priority. To be our best and maintain integrity in everything we do, we strive to provide associates with the right tools and resources. Through continual training and engaging associates and visitors in addressing safety issues, we have reduced our Total Recordable Incident Rate ("TRIR") by more than 60% from calendar year 2017 through calendar year 2021 and also reduced our Lost Time Incident Rate ("LTIR") over the same period. At 0.96 TRIR per 100 full-time workers, we are better than best-in-class benchmarks. We are also committed to improving the holistic health and well-being of our associates and have various programs in place to provide information, activities and support for assisting healthy choices.

Compliance with Laws and Regulations

Our operations and facilities are subject to extensive laws and regulations, including those related to trade taxes, government contracts, pollution and the protection of the environment, health and safety, including those governing, among other things, emissions to air, discharges to water, climate change, the generation, handling, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes and other materials, and the remediation of contaminated sites. A failure by us to comply with applicable requirements or the permits required for our operations could result in civil or criminal fines, penalties, enforcement actions, third-party claims for property damage and personal injury, requirements to clean up property or to pay for the costs of cleanup or regulatory or judicial orders enjoining or curtailing operations or requiring corrective measures, including the installation of pollution control equipment or remedial actions.

Some environmental laws and regulations impose requirements to investigate and remediate contamination on present and former owners and operators of facilities and sites, and on a potentially responsible party ("PRP") for sites to which such parties may have sent waste for disposal. Such liability can be imposed without regard to fault and, under certain circumstances, may be joint and several, resulting in one PRP being held responsible for the entire obligation. Liability may also include damages to natural resources. On occasion we are involved in such investigations and/or cleanup, and also have been or could be named as a PRP in environmental matters.

We do not currently anticipate any significant additional expenditures related to maintaining compliance; however, due to the evolving nature of laws and regulations and changes thereto, there can be no assurance that current expenditures will be adequate or that violations will not occur.

Additional Information

The address of our principal executive office is 511 West Freshwater Way, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204. Our phone number is (855) 480-5050. Our website address is www.zurnwatersolutions.com. We make available free of charge, on or through our website, as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), our annual and transition reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and proxy statements on Schedule 14A, as well as amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Copies of any materials that we file with the SEC can also be obtained free of charge through the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. In addition, our website includes (i) the charters for the Audit Committee, Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, Compensation Committee, and Environmental, Social and Governance Committee of our Board of Directors; (ii) our Corporate Governance Guidelines; and (iii) our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.We will also post on our website any amendments to these documents, and information about any waivers granted to directors or executive officers with respect to our Code of Ethics. Our website and the information contained on or connected to that site are not incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS.

The risks described below are not the only risks facing Zurn. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us, or those risks we currently view to be immaterial, may also materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations. In addition, see Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in Item 7 for a further discussion of some of the factors that could affect future results. If any of these risks materialize, our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows could be materially and adversely affected.

Strategic Risks

Our business and operations, and the operations of our suppliers, business partners and customers, have been, and are expected to continue to be adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and may be adversely affected by future outbreaks of infectious diseases.

We face risks related to the ongoing and unpredictable Covid-19 pandemic, which continues to impact all countries in which we do business and worldwide economic activity generally. The pandemic has resulted, and in the future may result in further widespread or localized health crises that adversely affect general commercial activity and the economies and financial markets of the countries and localities in which we operate, sell, and purchases goods and services. The pandemic, and any similar outbreak of infectious disease, poses the risk that we or our employees, contractors, suppliers, customers, transportation providers, and other business partners may be prevented or impaired from conducting ordinary course business activities for an indefinite period of time, either at specific branches or on a broader scale, including due to shutdowns necessitated for the health and well-being of our employees, the employees of our business partners, or shutdowns that may be requested or mandated by governmental authorities. In addition, our suppliers, business partners and customers also experienced similar negative impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic. Global supply chains have been disrupted, causing shortages, which could impact our ability to manufacture or supply our products. Also, we could in the future experience increased compensation expenses associated with employee recruiting and employee retention to the extent employment opportunities continue to multiply post-pandemic, causing the search for and retention of talent to become more competitive. This disruption of our employees, distributors, suppliers and customers has historically impacted and may continue to impact our sales and future operating results.

The continued unpredictable ebbing and flowing of new Covid-19 infections worldwide, including new variants, may continue to adversely impact our business, operations, suppliers and customers for the foreseeable future. Equally unpredictable are the responses of national and local governments and health authorities in affected regions to reduce community spread and protect employees, which may include mandatory shutdowns or limitations on all or certain types of business operations. The ultimate impact of the pandemic on our business, depends on the severity, location and duration of outbreaks of Covid-19 and its variants, and the actions of government and health official in response to the outbreaks, none of which is predictable at this time.

The markets in which we sell our products are highly competitive; an inability to effectively compete would adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We operate in highly competitive markets. Some of our competitors have achieved substantially more market penetration in certain of the markets in which we operate. Some of our competitors are larger and may have greater financial and other resources than we do, and our competitors may adopt more aggressive sales policies and devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products than we do, all of which could result in a loss of customers and adversely affect our results of operations.

We compete against both large international and national rivals, as well as many regional competitors. Significant competition in any of the markets in which we operate could result in substantial downward pressure on product pricing and our profit margins, thereby adversely affecting our financial results. Furthermore, we cannot provide assurance that we will be able to maintain or increase the current market share of our products successfully in the future.

If we are unable to effectively manage risks associated with changing technology, product innovation and new product development, manufacturing techniques, distribution channels and business continuity, we may be at a competitive disadvantage.

The successful implementation of our business strategy requires us to continuously evolve our existing products and introduce new products to meet customers' needs in the industries we serve. Our products are characterized by stringent performance and specification requirements that mandate a high degree of manufacturing and engineering expertise. If we fail to meet these requirements, our business and ability to compete effectively could suffer. We believe that our customers rigorously evaluate their suppliers on the basis of a number of factors, including product quality, price competitiveness, technical and manufacturing expertise, development and product design capability, new product innovation, reliability and timeliness of delivery, operational flexibility, customer service and overall management. Our ongoing success depends on our

ability to continue to meet our customers' changing specifications with respect to these criteria. We cannot ensure that we will be able to address technological advances or introduce new products that may be necessary to remain competitive within our businesses. Further, such new products and technologies may create additional exposure or risk. We cannot ensure that we can adequately protect our own technological developments to produce a sustainable competitive advantage. Furthermore, we may be subject to business continuity risk in the event of an unexpected loss of a material facility or operation. We cannot ensure that we can adequately protect against such a loss.

Economic and financial market weakness, as well as overall challenging market cycles, may particularly impact the industries we serve, and, as a result may adversely affect our financial condition or results of operations.

Our business operations have been adversely affected from time to time by volatility and weaknesses in the global economy and financial markets. While the Covid-19 pandemic has created opportunities in certain areas of our business, the pandemic is expected to continue to adversely affect other areas of our business, though we are unable to predict the extent of the impact due to the uncertainty regarding the duration and severity of the pandemic. Weak, challenging or volatile economic conditions in the end markets, businesses or geographic areas in which we sell our products typically reduces demand for our products and results in a decrease in sales volume.

Our financial performance depends, in large part, on conditions in the markets that we serve in the U.S. and the global economy generally. Some of the industries we serve are highly cyclical, and some industries have experienced, and are expected to experience, greater pandemic-related impacts than others. Any sustained weakness in demand or downturn or uncertainty in the economy generally, would materially reduce our net sales and profitability.

For example, sales to the construction industry are driven by trends in commercial and residential construction, housing starts and trends in residential repair and remodeling. Consumer confidence, employment rates, weather conditions, mortgage rates, credit standards and availability of consumer credit and income levels play a significant role in driving demand in commercial and residential construction, repair and remodeling sector. A drop or weakness in consumer confidence, prolonged adverse weather conditions, lack of availability or increased cost of credit, tightened credit standards or increased unemployment could materially impact demand for and sales of our products and/or result in downward pressure on product pricing and our profit margins, any or all of which could adversely affect our financial results.

Volatility and disruption of financial markets, including as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, could limit the ability of our customers to obtain adequate financing to maintain operations and may cause them to terminate existing purchase orders, reduce the volume of products they purchase from us in the future or impact their ability to pay their receivables. Adverse economic and financial market conditions may also cause our suppliers to be unable to meet their commitments to us or may cause suppliers to make changes in the credit terms they extend to us, such as shortening the required payment period for outstanding accounts receivable or reducing or eliminating the amount of trade credit available to us.

An inability to effectively integrate acquisitions could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Acquisitions are part of our growth strategy, and we have completed several in the last few years. We cannot ensure that we will be able to complete any future acquisition, that we will be able to successfully integrate any acquired business or operations, or that we will be able to accomplish our strategic objectives as a result of any such acquisition.

Acquisitions are often undertaken to improve the operating results of either or both of the acquirer and the acquired company and we cannot ensure that we will be successful in this regard. We cannot provide any assurance that we will be able to fully realize the intended benefits from our acquisitions. Acquisitions involve risks, including the possible inability to integrate an acquired business into our operations, potential failure to realize anticipated benefits, diversion of management's attention, issues in customer transitions, potential inadequacies of indemnities and other contractual remedies and unanticipated problems, risks or liabilities, including environmental, some or all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

The loss or financial instability of any significant customer or customers accounting for our backlog could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

A substantial part of our business is concentrated with a few customers, and we have certain customers that are significant to our business. During the year ending December 31, 2021, our top five customers accounted for approximately 41% of our consolidated net sales, with one customer accounting for 23% of consolidated net sales. The loss of one or more of these customers or other major customers, or a deterioration in our relationship with any of them could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Our contracted backlog is comprised of future orders for our products from a broad number of customers. Defaults by any of the customers that have placed significant orders with us, whether because of bankruptcy, illiquidity, operational problems or otherwise, could have a significant adverse effect on our net sales, profitability and cash flow. We believe the risk

of customer default is heightened due to the global economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic although to date we have not experienced a material increase in such defaults due to the pandemic. As of December 31, 2021, all of our backlog was scheduled to ship during the year ending December 31, 2022.

We rely on independent distributors and independent sales representatives. Termination of one or more of our relationships with any of our key independent distributors and / or a substantial number of independent representatives, or an increase in their sales of our competitors’ products could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

We depend on 1,600 independent sales representatives and approximately 60 third-party warehouses to distribute our products. In fiscal 2021, our three largest independent distributors generated approximately 35% of our consolidated net sales with the largest accounting for 23% of consolidated net sales.

The loss of one of our key distributors or of a substantial number of our other distributors or independent sales representatives, or an increase in the distributors' sales of competitors' products to our customers could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

The inability to adequately protect intellectual property, or defend against infringement claims brought against us, could adversely affect our business.

We attempt to protect our intellectual property through a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection, as well as third-party nondisclosure and assignment agreements. We cannot assure that any of our applications for protection of our intellectual property rights will be approved and successfully maintained or that our competitors will not infringe or successfully challenge our intellectual property rights. We also rely on unpatented proprietary technology and trade secrets.It is possible that others will independently develop the same or similar technology or otherwise obtain access to our unpatented technology. To protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information, we require employees, consultants and advisors to enter into confidentiality agreements. We cannot assure that these agreements will provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information in the event of any unauthorized use, misappropriation or disclosure. If we are unable to maintain the proprietary nature of our technologies, our ability to sustain margins on some or all of our products may be affected, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

In addition, in the ordinary course of our operations, from time to time we seek to enforce our intellectual property rights through litigation or are subject to third party litigation claiming infringement, including in respect of some of our more profitable products. An adverse ruling or other unfavorable outcome in any such litigation could have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

We may be unable to realize intended benefits from our ongoing Supply Chain Optimization and Footprint Repositioning initiatives, restructuring and divestiture efforts, and as a result our profitability may be hurt or our business otherwise might be adversely affected.

In order to operate more efficiently, control costs and refine our business focus, we undertake from time to time restructuring plans, which can include facility consolidations, product rationalizations, workforce reductions and other cost reduction initiatives. From time to time, we also choose to divest operations that we no longer believe are additive or complementary to our business or strategic direction. These plans are intended to reduce operating costs, to modify our footprint to reflect changes in the markets we serve, to reflect changes in business focus, to strengthen focus on our core business and/or to address overall manufacturing overcapacity, including as a result of acquisitions. If we do not successfully manage our current restructuring activities, or any other restructuring activities or divestitures that we may undertake in the future, expected efficiencies, benefits and cost savings might be delayed or not realized, and our operations and business could be disrupted.

In addition, as a result of such actions, we expect to incur restructuring expenses and other charges (including, for example, potential impairment charges related to fixed assets, goodwill and other intangibles), which may be material, and may exceed our estimates. Several factors could cause restructuring or divestiture activities to adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. These include potential disruption of our operations, customer relationships and other aspects of our business. Employee morale and productivity could also suffer and may result in unwanted employee attrition. These activities require substantial management time and attention and may divert management from other important work or result in a failure to meet operational targets. Divestitures may also give rise to obligations to buyers or other parties that could have a financial effect after the transaction is completed. Moreover, we could make changes to, or experience delays in executing, any restructuring or divestiture plans, any of which could cause further disruption and additional unanticipated expense.

Terrorism, conflicts, wars and weather events, as well as other events outside of our control may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to risk of damage or disruption to us, our employees, facilities, partners, suppliers, distributors, resellers or customers due to acts of terrorism, political conflicts, wars and weather events, as well as other events outside of our control, such as civil unrest in areas where we have operations. In addition to the issues created by significant weather events, the potential for future attacks, the national and international responses to attacks or perceived threats to national security, and other actual or potential actions, conflicts or wars have created, and will continue to create, economic and political uncertainties. In addition, actions against or by the U.S. may particularly impact our business or employees. Although it is impossible to predict the occurrences or consequences of any such events, they could result in disruptions to our operations, decreases in demand for our products, difficulty or impossibility in delivering products to our customers or receiving components from our suppliers, delays and inefficiencies in our supply chain and risks to our employees, resulting in, among other things, temporarily closed facilities, travel restrictions or longer-term disruptions, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Operational Risks

Increases in the cost, and/or the availability, of raw materials, including as a result of tariffs or other trade protection measures, could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Our manufacturing processes depend on third parties for raw materials, in particular bar steel, brass, castings, copper, forgings, high-performance engineered plastic, plate steel, resin, sheet steel and zinc, as well as petroleum and other carbon-based fuel products. While we strive to maintain alternative sources for most raw materials, our business is subject to the risk of price fluctuations, including as a result of, or in reaction to, tariffs, import duties, or other trade protection measures instituted by the U.S. or other countries, inefficiencies in the event of a need to change our suppliers, and delays in the delivery of and potential unavailability of our raw materials. Also, trade wars or outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, could impact the cost or availability of goods or materials, both imported and domestic, or adversely affect demand for our products. Any such price fluctuations or delays, if material, could harm our profitability or operations. In addition, the loss of a substantial number of suppliers could result in material cost increases or reduce our production capacity. In addition to suppliers we also rely on third party shippers to assist in transportation of our product throughout the supply chain. Availability of transportation and the associated cost increases could have an impact on our profitability or operations.

We do not typically enter into hedge transactions to reduce our exposure to purchase price risks and cannot ensure that we would be successful in recouping any increases if these risks were to materialize. In addition, if we are unable to continue to purchase our required quantities of raw materials on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, or if we are unable to maintain or enter into new purchase contracts for our larger commodities, our business operations could be disrupted and our profitability could be materially impacted.

The ongoing updates to our Enterprise Resource Planning ("ERP") systems, as well as failures of our data security and information technology infrastructure or cyber security breaches, could cause substantial business interruptions and/or adversely affect our business.

Utilizing a phased approach, we continue to update our ERP systems across our Zurn operations. If these updates are ineffective, we could incur substantial business interruptions, including the inability to perform routine business transactions, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial performance. Further, these updates may not result in the benefits we intend or be implemented on a timely basis.

In addition, we depend heavily on information technology infrastructure to manage our business objectives and operations, support our customers’ requirements and protect sensitive information. There have been significant and increasing instances of data and security breaches, malicious interference with technology systems and industrial espionage involving companies in numerous industries, including cloud providers, and cyber security threats are becoming more complex. Like other companies, we have experienced these types of threats; however, to date, we have not experienced a material threat or incident. In addition, at times a large percentage of our workforce may be working remotely in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which may heighten these risks.While we have taken steps to maintain and enhance our cyber security by implementing additional security technologies, internal controls, network and data center resiliency, redundancy and recovery processes, upgrading our remote work environment and by obtaining insurance coverage, these measures may be inadequate.As a result, any inability by us to successfully manage our information systems, or respond effectively to any attack on or interference with our systems, including matters related to system and data security, privacy, reliability, compliance, performance and access, problems related to our systems caused by natural disasters, security breaches or malicious attacks, and any inability of these systems to fulfill their intended business purpose, could impede our ability to record or process orders, manufacture and ship in a timely manner, account for and collect receivables, protect sensitive data of the Company, our customers, our employees, our suppliers and other business partners, comply with our third party obligations of confidentiality

and care, or otherwise carry on business in the normal course. Any such events could require costly remediation beyond levels covered by insurance and could cause us to lose customers and/or revenue, including as a result of legal or regulatory claims or proceedings, or damage our reputation, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.

We are also subject to an increasing number of evolving data privacy and security laws and regulations that impose requirements on us. We collect, store, access and otherwise process various types of confidential or sensitive data, including proprietary business information, personal data and other information that is subject to privacy and security laws, regulations and/or customer-imposed controls. Failure to comply with such laws and regulations could result in the imposition of fines, penalties and other costs. For example California’s implementation of its Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 and Connected Device Privacy Act of 2018 all could disrupt our ability to sell products or use and transfer data because such activities may not be in compliance with applicable law in certain jurisdictions.

Our inability to attract and retain key personnel, as well as challenges with respect to the management of human capital resources, in a highly competitive industry may adversely affect our business.

Our ongoing success depends on our ability to recruit, retain and develop highly skilled management and key personnel, as well as our ability to effectively manage human capital resources. Competition for talented and skilled individuals in our industry is intense and we may not be able to successfully recruit, train or retain qualified personnel, or to effectively implement successions for existing personnel. If we fail to retain and recruit the necessary personnel or arrange for successors to key personnel, our business could materially suffer.

Increased frequency of weather events could disrupt construction activity and adversely affect the demand for our products.

Demand for our products is primarily driven by commercial construction activity, remodeling and retrofit opportunities, and to a lesser extent, new home starts. Weather is an important variable affecting financial performance as it significantly impacts construction activity. Adverse weather conditions, such as prolonged periods of cold or rain, blizzards, hurricanes and other severe weather patterns, the frequency of which might be affected by climate change, could delay or halt construction and remodeling activity, which could have a negative effect on our business. For example, an unusually severe or prolonged winter can lead to reduced or delayed construction activity which could magnify the seasonal decline in our net sales and earnings during the winter months and hamper the typical seasonal increase in net sales and earnings during the spring months.

The long-term effects of climate change could decrease demand for certain of our products.

Climate change may impact rainfall and water availability in many areas in unpredictable and different ways, which may change the way building owners and municipalities manage drinking, waste and storm water and may lead to new or modified regulations that may impact the market for our products.In certain areas, these changes could lead to a reduction in demand for certain of our water management products, although it also could increase demand for other of our water management products.The overall effect of this could be to reduce our sales and addressable market and/or alter our product sales mix in ways that reduce our margins, either of which could adversely impact our results of operations.

The potential physical impacts of climate change may materially adversely affect our business and financial condition.

The potential physical impacts of climate change on our operations are highly uncertain and would be particular to the geographic circumstances in our relevant markets and areas of operation. These may include changes in rainfall and storm patterns and intensities, water shortages, changing sea levels and changing temperatures. The impacts of climate change may materially and adversely impact the cost, production and financial performance of our operations. Further, any impacts to our business and financial condition as a result of climate change are likely to occur over an extended period of time and are therefore difficult to quantify with any degree of specificity. For example, extreme weather events may result in adverse physical effects on portions of our infrastructure, which could disrupt our supply chain and ultimately our business operations. In addition, disruption of transportation and distribution systems could result in reduced operational efficiency and customer service interruption. Climate related events have the potential to disrupt our business, including the business of our suppliers, and may cause us to experience higher attrition, losses and additional costs to resume operations.

Financial Risks

Our debt levels could adversely affect our ability to raise additional capital to fund our operations, limit our ability to react to changes in the economy or our industry, inhibit us from making beneficial acquisitions, adversely impact our ability to implement our capital allocation strategy and prevent us from making debt service payments.

As a leveraged company, our ability to generate sufficient cash flow from operations to make scheduled payments on our debt will depend on a range of economic, competitive and business factors, many of which are outside our control. Our business may not generate sufficient cash flow from operations to meet our debt service and other obligations, and currently anticipated cost savings and operating improvements may not be realized on schedule, or at all. If we are unable to meet our expenses and debt service and other obligations, we may need to refinance all or a portion of our indebtedness on or before

maturity, sell assets or raise equity. We may not be able to refinance any of our indebtedness, sell assets or raise equity on commercially reasonable terms or at all, which could cause us to default on our obligations and impair our liquidity. Our inability to generate sufficient cash flow to satisfy our debt obligations or to refinance our obligations on commercially reasonable terms would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Our indebtedness could also have other important consequences with respect to our ability to manage and grow our business successfully, including the following:

•it may limit our ability to borrow money for our working capital, capital expenditures, strategic initiatives, acquisitions or other purposes;

•it may make it more difficult for us to satisfy our obligations with respect to our indebtedness, and any failure to comply with the obligations of any of our debt instruments, including restrictive covenants and borrowing conditions, could result in an event of default under our credit agreement and our other indebtedness;

•a portion of our cash flow from operations will be dedicated to the repayment of our indebtedness and so will not be available for other purposes;

•it may limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our operations or business, or in taking advantage of strategic opportunities;

•at times we may be more highly leveraged than some of our competitors, which may place us at a competitive disadvantage;

•it may make us more vulnerable to downturns in our business or the economy;

•it may restrict us from making strategic acquisitions or divestitures, introducing new technologies or exploiting business opportunities; and

•along with the financial and other restrictive covenants in the documents governing our indebtedness, among other things, may limit our ability to borrow additional funds, make acquisitions or capital expenditures, acquire or dispose of assets or take certain of the actions mentioned above, or adversely impact our ability to implement our capital allocation strategy (which includes paying dividends on our common stock), any of which could restrict our operations and business plans.

Furthermore, a substantial portion of our indebtedness, including the senior secured credit facilities, bears interest at rates that fluctuate with changes in certain short-term prevailing interest rates, including the London Interbank Offered Rate ("LIBOR"). The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority announced that after 2021 it would no longer persuade or compel panel banks to submit the rates required to calculate LIBOR. On March 5, 2021, ICE Benchmark Administration (“IBA”) confirmed it would cease publication of 1 Week and 2 Month USD LIBOR settings immediately following the LIBOR publication on December 31, 2021, but it would not cease publication of Overnight, 1, 3, 6 and 12 Month USD LIBOR settings until immediately following the LIBOR publication on June 30, 2023. The extended cessation date for most USD LIBOR tenors will allow for more time for existing legacy USD LIBOR contracts to mature and provide additional time to continue to prepare for the transition from LIBOR.

The Alternative Reference Rates Committee (“ARCC”), which was convened by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has identified the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”) as the recommended alternative rate for USD LIBOR. The composition and characteristics of SOFR are not the same as those of LIBOR. SOFR is a broad U.S. Treasury repurchase agreement market financing rate that represents overnight secured funding transactions. This means that SOFR is fundamentally different from LIBOR in two key respects. First, SOFR is a secured rate, while LIBOR is an unsecured rate. Second, SOFR is an overnight rate, while LIBOR represents interbank funding over different maturities. As a result, there can be no assurance that SOFR or any alternative reference rate will perform in the same way as LIBOR would have at any time, including, without limitation, as a result of changes in interest and yield rates in the market, market volatility or global or regional economic, financial, political, regulatory, judicial or other events.

The agreement governing our senior secured credit facilities provides that if LIBOR becomes unavailable, or the Financial Conduct Authority determines that LIBOR is not a representative index, then SOFR will automatically replace LIBOR for all purposes of such agreement. Although the consequences of these developments cannot be predicted at this time, should LIBOR, SOFR, or any other alternative reference rate no longer be available, the rates under our variable rate indebtedness could increase and access to capital could be limited. Additionally, we may continue to be subject to risk on outstanding instruments which rely on LIBOR. For example, if a contract or instrument is not transitioned to a new reference rate and LIBOR ceases to exist, we may experience increased interest rate risk. In addition, we may be dependent on third parties to upgrade their systems, software, and other critical functions to assist in our orderly transition from LIBOR. See Item 7A, Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk for additional information on our debt that is subject to the LIBOR rate.

Also, in spite of the limitations in our credit agreement, we may still incur significantly more debt, which could intensify the risks described above on our business, results and financial condition. For more information about our indebtedness, see Item 8, Note 11, Long-Term Debt.

The agreements governing our financing arrangements impose certain operating and financial restrictions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Our credit agreement contains various covenants that limit or prohibit our ability (subject to certain exceptions), among other things, to:

•incur or guarantee additional indebtedness;

•pay dividends on our capital stock or redeem, repurchase, retire or make distributions in respect of our capital stock or subordinated indebtedness or make other restricted payments;

•make certain loans, acquisitions, capital expenditures or investments;

•sell certain assets, including stock of our subsidiaries;

•enter into sale and leaseback transactions;

•create or incur liens;

•consolidate, merge, sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of all or substantially all of our assets; and

•enter into certain transactions with our affiliates.

These agreements contain covenants that restrict our ability to take certain actions, such as incurring additional debt, if we are unable to meet defined specified financial ratios, which could result in limiting our long-term growth prospects by hindering our ability to incur future indebtedness or grow through acquisitions. Failure to comply with certain covenants in these agreements could result in a default. For more information, see Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources.

The restrictions contained in the credit agreement could:

•limit our ability to plan for or react to market conditions or meet capital needs or otherwise restrict our activities or business plans;

•restrict our ability to repurchase shares of our common stock and/or adversely impact our ability to implement capital allocation strategy;

•adversely affect our ability to finance our operations, to enter into strategic acquisitions, to fund investments or other capital needs or to engage in other business activities that would be in our interest; and

•limit our access to the cash generated by our subsidiaries.

Upon the occurrence of an event of default under the credit agreement, the lenders could elect to declare all amounts outstanding under the senior secured credit facilities to be immediately due and payable and terminate all commitments to extend further credit. If we were unable to repay those amounts, the lenders under the senior secured credit facilities could proceed against the collateral granted to them to secure the senior secured credit facilities on a first- priority lien basis. If the lenders under the senior secured credit facilities accelerate the repayment of borrowings, such acceleration could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. For a more detailed description of the limitations on our ability to incur additional indebtedness, see Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations-Liquidity and Capital Resources.

Our goodwill and intangible assets are valued at an amount that is high relative to our total assets and in excess of our stockholders equity.

As of December 31, 2021, our goodwill and intangible assets totaled $254.1 million and $179.1 million, respectively, and represent a substantial portion of our assets. These assets result from our acquisitions, representing the excess of cost over the fair value of the tangible net assets we have acquired. We assess at least annually whether there has been impairment in the value of our goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets. Significant negative industry or economic trends, disruptions to our business, inability to effectively integrate acquired businesses, unexpected significant changes or planned changes to the use of our assets, changes in the structure of our business, divestitures, market capitalization declines, or increases in associated discount rates may impair our goodwill and other intangible assets. Any determination requiring the impairment of goodwill or intangible assets would negatively affect our results of operations, particularly in the period in which we take any related charges, and financial condition.

Our required cash contributions to our pension plans may increase further and we could experience a material change in the funded status of our defined benefit pension plans and the amount recorded in our consolidated balance sheets related to those plans. Additionally, our pension costs could increase in future years.

The funded status of the defined benefit pension plans depends on such factors as asset returns, market interest rates, legislative changes and funding regulations. If the returns on the assets of any of our plans were to decline in future periods, if market interest rates were to decline, if the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation ("PBGC") were to require additional contributions to any such plans as a result of acquisitions or if other actuarial assumptions were to be modified, our future required cash contributions and pension costs to such plans could increase. Any such increases could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

The need to make contributions, which may be substantial, to such plans may reduce the cash available to meet our other obligations, including our obligations under our borrowing arrangements or to meet the needs of our business. In addition, the PBGC may terminate our U.S. defined benefit pension plans under limited circumstances, including in the event the PBGC concludes that the risk may increase unreasonably if such plans continue. In the event a U.S. defined benefit pension plan is terminated for any reason while it is underfunded, we could be required to make an immediate payment to the PBGC of all or a substantial portion of such plan's underfunding, as calculated by the PBGC based on its own assumptions (which might result in a larger obligation than that based on the assumptions we have used to fund such plan), and the PBGC could place a lien on material amounts of our assets.

Legal and Compliance Risks

Our failure to comply with government regulations and requirements, third-party certification requirements and policies and standards driven by our customers or other constituencies, including those related to social responsibility, could adversely affect our reputation, business and results of operations.

In addition to complying with laws and applicable government regulations and requirements, prevailing industry standards, competitive pressures and/or our customers may require us to comply with further quality, social responsibility, climate-related or other business policies or standards, before customers and prospective customers commence, or continue, doing business with us. These expectations, policies and standards may be more restrictive than current laws and regulations as well as our own pre-existing policies; they may be customer-driven, established by the industry sectors in which we operate or imposed by third-party organizations or other constituencies.

Our compliance with these policies, standards and third party certification requirements could be costly and could in some cases require us to change the way in which we operate. In addition, if we fail to comply, or if our compliance increases our costs and/or restricts our ability to do business as compared to our competitors that do not adhere to such standards, we could experience an adverse effect on our customer relationships, reputation, operations, cost structure and/or profitability.

Regulatory and legislative developments related to climate change, may materially adversely affect our business and financial condition.

A number of governmental bodies have introduced or are contemplating legislative and regulatory changes in response to various climate change interest groups and the potential impact of climate change.Legislation and increased regulation regarding climate change could impose significant costs on us and our suppliers, including costs related to increased energy requirements, capital equipment, environmental monitoring and reporting, and other costs to comply with such regulations. Any future climate change regulations could also negatively impact our ability to compete with companies situated in areas not subject to such limitations. Given the political significance and uncertainty around the impact of climate change and how it should be addressed, we cannot predict how legislation and regulation will affect our financial condition, operating performance and ability to compete. Furthermore, even without such regulation, increased awareness and any adverse publicity in the global marketplace about potential impacts on climate change by us could harm our reputation. Any of the foregoing could result in a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

We are subject to changes in legislative, regulatory and legal developments involving taxes.

We are subject to U.S. federal and state, and foreign, income, payroll, property, sales and use, value-added, fuel and other types of taxes. Changes in tax rates, enactment of new tax laws, revisions of tax regulations, and claims or litigation with taxing authorities may require significant judgment in determining the appropriate provision and related accruals for these taxes; and as a result, such changes could result in substantially higher taxes and, therefore, could have a significant adverse effect on our results or operations, financial conditions and liquidity.

We may incur significant costs for environmental compliance and/or to address liabilities under environmental laws and regulations, and our reputation may be adversely affected.

Our operations and facilities worldwide are subject to extensive laws and regulations related to pollution and the protection of the environment, health and safety, including those governing, among other things, emissions to air, discharges to water, the generation, handling, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes and other materials, and the remediation of contaminated sites. A failure by us to comply with applicable requirements or the permits required for our operations could result in civil or criminal fines, penalties, enforcement actions, third-party claims for property damage and personal injury, requirements to clean up property or to pay for the costs of cleanup or regulatory or judicial orders enjoining or curtailing operations or requiring corrective measures, including the installation of pollution control equipment or remedial actions, as well as cause damage to our reputation.

Some environmental laws and regulations impose requirements to investigate and remediate contamination on present and former owners and operators of facilities and sites, and on potentially responsible parties ("PRPs") for sites to which such parties may have sent waste for disposal. Such liability can be imposed without regard to fault and, under certain circumstances, may be joint and several, resulting in one PRP being held responsible for the entire obligation. Liability may also include damages to natural resources. On occasion we are involved in such investigations and/or cleanup, and also have been or could be named as a PRP in environmental matters.

The discovery of additional contamination, including at acquired facilities, the imposition of more stringent environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including cleanup requirements, disputes with our insurers or the insolvency of other responsible parties could require us to incur significant capital expenditures or operating costs materially in excess of our accruals. Future investigations we undertake may lead to discoveries of contamination that must be remediated, and decisions to close facilities may trigger remediation requirements that are not currently applicable. We may also face liability for alleged personal injury or property damage due to exposure to hazardous substances used or disposed of by us, contained within our current or former products, or present in the soil or groundwater at our current or former facilities. We could incur significant costs in connection with such liabilities. See Item 8, Note 18, Commitments and Contingencies for additional information.

Certain subsidiaries are subject to litigation, including numerous asbestos and product liability claims, which could adversely affect our business, reputation, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Certain subsidiaries are co-defendants in various lawsuits in a number of U.S. jurisdictions alleging personal injury as a result of exposure to asbestos that was used in certain components of our products. The uncertainties of litigation and the uncertainties related to insurance and indemnification coverage make it difficult to accurately predict the ultimate financial effect of these claims. If our insurance or indemnification coverage is not adequate to cover our potential financial exposure, our insurers dispute their obligations to provider coverage or the actual number or value of asbestos-related claims differs materially from our existing estimates, we could incur material costs that could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

In addition, we may be subject to product liability claims if the use of our products, or the exposure to our products or their raw materials, is alleged to have resulted in injury or other adverse effects. We currently maintain product liability insurance coverage but we cannot assure that we will be able to obtain such insurance on commercially reasonable terms in the future, if at all, or that any such insurance will provide adequate coverage against claims. Product liability claims can be expensive to defend and can divert the attention of management and other personnel for long periods of time, regardless of the ultimate outcome. In addition, our business depends on the strong brand reputation we have developed; if this reputation is damaged as a result of a product liability claim, it may be difficult to maintain our pricing positions and market share with respect to our products. Therefore, an unsuccessful product liability defense could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. See Item 8, Note 18, Commitments and Contingencies for additional details.

Risks Related to the Spin-Off Transaction

If the Spin-Off Transaction does not qualify as a tax-free reorganization and distribution for purposes of U.S. federal income taxes, we may be subject to substantial additional taxes.

In connection with the Spin-Off Transaction, we obtained a tax opinion and a private letter ruling from the IRS (“IRS Ruling”) as to certain aspects relevant to treatment of the various steps of the transaction as tax-free to us and our shareholders for U.S. federal income tax purposes. The tax opinion and IRS Ruling are based on certain factual representations and assumptions and covenants of the parties to the transaction. If any of the factual representations and assumptions are materially false or incorrect, or one or more of the relevant covenants are breached, the validity of the tax opinion and IRS Ruling could be impaired. Furthermore, a tax opinion only represents counsel’s best legal judgment, and is not binding on the IRS or the courts, which may disagree with the opinion.

If the IRS determines that some or all of the transactions comprising the Spin-Off Transaction are taxable to us, we and our shareholders at the time of the transaction could be subject to significant additional U.S federal and state income taxes. In certain circumstances, we would be entitled to indemnity from Regal for all or a portion of such additional tax, but there is no assurance that Regal would have the ability to satisfy any such indemnity obligation.

As a result of the Spin-Off Transaction, we are subject to certain limitations on Company actions for two years, including certain business combinations, that might otherwise be advantageous.

Under relevant agreements governing the Spin-Off Transaction, we are prohibited from taking certain actions during the two-year period following the closing that could cause aspects of the Spin-Off Transaction to fail to qualify for their intended tax treatment. If we breach or are deemed to have breached these restrictions, the tax-free treatment of some or all of the Spin-Off Transaction could be impaired, and we could be subject to substantial additional U.S. federal and state income taxes. These restrictions might interfere with our current business and prevent us from taking advantage of opportunities that might be advantageous.

The Spin-Off Transaction may not achieve the intended benefits and may expose us to potential risks and liabilities.

We undertook the Spin-Off Transaction because, among other things, we believed that the transaction could provide more value to Zurn and Zurn stockholders than other potential strategic options for the Company or our Process and Motion Control business, including a sale of the entire company. We may not benefit as expected from the increased focus on our core Zurn business, strategic programs and objectives made possible by the transaction.In addition, the value realized in the transaction may be reduced by potential liabilities related to post-closing adjustments and indemnities, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS.

None.

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES.

As of December 31, 2021, we had 20 principal manufacturing and warehouse facilities as set forth below:

Total Square Feet

Location Number of Facilities Owned Leased

USA

Canada

Other

United Arab Emirates 1 — 6,000

We believe our principal manufacturing and warehouse facilities are suitable for our operations and provide sufficient capacity for our current and future anticipated needs.

ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.

Information with respect to our legal proceedings is contained in Item 8, Note 18, Commitments and Contingencies.

ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES.

Not applicable.

* * *

Information about our Executive Officers

The following table sets forth information concerning our executive officers as of the date of this report:

Name Age Position(s) In Current Position(s) since

Todd A. Adams 51 Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer 2020

Mark W. Peterson 50 Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer 2011

Sudhanshu Chhabra 55 Vice President - Zurn Business Systems 2018

Jeffrey J. LaValle 43 Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary 2022

Michael D. Troutman 55 Chief Information Officer 2007

Craig G. Wehr 57 President - Zurn 2013

Information about the business experience of our executive officers during at least the past five fiscal years is as follows:

Todd A. Adams became our Chair of the Board in 2020 and Chief Executive Officer in 2009. Mr. Adams joined us in 2004 as Vice President, Treasurer and Controller; he has also served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and as President of the Water Management platform.

Mark W. Peterson became our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in 2011. Mr. Peterson previously served as Vice President and Controller of Zurn and as a divisional CFO. Mr. Peterson is a certified public accountant.

Sudhanshu Chhabra became Vice President – Zurn Business Systems in 2018.Mr. Chhabra was a sector President and Regional Executive - India from 2016 to 2018 after having joined Zurn in 2014 as President & Regional Executive for India and the Middle East. Prior to joining Zurn, Mr. Chhabra served in various positions with Danaher Corporation, a diversified manufacturer, most recently as President – Asia, Gilbarco Veeder-Root Inc. and as Managing Director – India, Gilbarco Veeder-Root Inc.

Rodney Jackson became Senior Vice President – Business & Corporate Development in 2014. Prior to joining Zurn, Mr. Jackson was a member of Danaher Corporation’s Corporate Development team, most recently as Vice President of Corporate Development and M&A lead for its product identification and motion platforms. Prior to joining Danaher, Mr. Jackson served in various roles of increasing responsibility with Pentair and worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs.

Jeffrey J. LaValle became our Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary in 2022. Mr. LaValle previously served as our Assistant General Counsel since 2013. Prior to joining Zurn, Mr. LaValle was a partner at Quarles & Brady LLP, an AmLaw 200 full-service law firm.

Michael D. Troutman became Zurn's Chief Information Officer at Zurn in 2007 and an executive officer in 2017. Before joining Zurn, he was with AT&T, Lucent, and Agere Systems in various senior information technology positions implementing global industry leading solutions and processes.

Craig G. Wehr became President of Zurn in 2013. Mr. Wehr previously served in various positions with Zurn since 1993, including as Vice President / General Manager of Zurn Specification Drain Operations.

PART II

ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES.

As previously disclosed, following the completion of the Spin-Off Transaction with Regal, we changed our name to “Zurn Water Solutions Corporation” and shares of our common stock began to trade on the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE") under the ticker symbol “ZWS”. Prior to the completion of the Spin-Off Transaction, our common stock was listed on the NYSE under the symbol "RXN". As of February 4, 2022, there was one holder of record of our common stock. We believe the number of beneficial owners of our common stock exceeds 1,000.

Dividend Policy

Following the completion of the Spin-Off Transaction, on October 21, 2021 our Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend on our common stock of $0.03 per-share that was paid on December 7, 2021. The decision whether to continue to pay dividends in the future will be made by our Board of Directors in light of conditions then existing, including factors such as our results of operations, financial condition and requirements, business conditions and covenants under any applicable borrowing agreements and other contractual arrangements.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

In fiscal 2015, our Board of Directors approved a stock repurchase program (the "Repurchase Program") authorizing the repurchase of up to $200.0 million of our common stock from time to time on the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. On January 27, 2020, our Board of Directors approved increasing the remaining share repurchase authority under the Repurchase Program to $300.0 million. The Repurchase Program does not require us to acquire any particular amount of common stock and does not specify the timing of purchases or the prices to be paid; however, the program will continue until the maximum amount of dollars authorized has been expended or until it is modified or terminated by the Board. There were no repurchases of our common stock during the three months ended December 31, 2021 and approximately $0.9 million of repurchases of our common stock during the twelve months ended December 31, 2021. A total of approximately $162.8 million of repurchase authority remained under the Repurchase Program at December 31, 2021.

Performance Graph

Set forth below is a line graph comparing the cumulative total shareholder return of our common stock with the Standard & Poor's (the "S&P") 500 Index and the S&P 1500 Industrials Index for the year ended December 31, 2021, the Transition Period ended December 31, 2020, and our preceding four full fiscal years. The graph assumes the value of the investment in our common stock and each index was $100 on March 31, 2016, and that all dividends were reinvested. The shareholder return shown on the graph below is not necessarily indicative of future performance and the indices included do not necessarily reflect management's opinion that such indices are an appropriate measure of the relative performance of Zurn's stock.

(1) Zurn Water Solutions Corporation historical prices were adjusted to reflect the impact of the Spin-Off Transaction that was completed on October 4, 2021.

ITEM 6.

[Reserved]

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.

The following discussion of results of operations and financial condition includes periods prior to the acquisitions ofthe assets of East Creek Corporation ("StainlessDrains.com"), Just Manufacturing Company ("Just Manufacturing"), Hadrian Manufacturing Inc., as well as the stock of Hadrian Inc. (Hadrian Inc. and Hadrian Manufacturing Inc. are collectively referred to as "Hadrian"), the assets of Advance Technology Solutions, LLC (d/b/a ATS GREASEwatch) ("ATS GREASEwatch") and Wade Drains ("Wade"). Our financial performance includes the Stainlessdrains.com business subsequent to May 10, 2019, the Just Manufacturing business subsequent to January 28, 2020, and the Hadrian business subsequent to December 11, 2020, the ATS GREASEwatch business subsequent to April 16, 2021 and the Wade Drains business subsequent to November 17, 2021, the respective dates of their acquisitions. Accordingly, the discussion and analysis does not reflect any impact of Stainlessdrains.com, Just Manufacturing, Hadrian, ATS GREASEwatch or Wade Drains transactions prior to the respective closing dates.

We completed the spin-off of our Process & Motion Control platform ("PMC") on October 4, 2021 in the Spin-Off Transaction, and, accordingly, the results of operations and financial condition associated with PMC have been reclassified to discontinued operations for all periods presented. As a result, the following discussion of results of operations and financial condition is centered on the Zurn business excluding PMC. The consolidated statements of cash flows for the year ended December 31, 2021, the nine month Transition Period ended December 31, 2021 and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 have not been adjusted to separately disclose cash flows related to the discontinued operations. See Item 8, Note 4, Discontinued Operations for additional information on cash flows associated with the discontinued operations.

You should read the following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations together with Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data. Following the end of our fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, we transitioned to a December 31 fiscal year-end. The nine-month period from April 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020 is referred to as the Transition Period. Fiscal years prior to and including fiscal year 2020 ended on March 31 of each calendar year. For example, our fiscal year 2020, or fiscal 2020, means the period from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020. Our fiscal year 2021 commenced on January 1, 2021.

This discussion contains forward-looking statements and involves numerous risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those described in the "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of this report. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. See also "Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" found elsewhere in this report.

The information contained in this section is provided as a supplement to the consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this report to help provide an understanding of our financial condition, changes in our financial condition and results of our operations. This section is organized as follows:

Company Overview. This section provides a general description of our business.

Financial Statement Presentation. This section provides a brief description of certain items and accounting policies that appear in our financial statements and general factors that impact these items.

Critical Accounting Estimates. This section discusses the accounting policies and estimates that we consider to be important to our financial condition and results of operations and that require significant judgment and estimates by management in their application.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements. This section cites to the discussion of new or revised accounting pronouncements and standards in Item 8, Note 2, Significant Accounting Policies of our consolidated financial statements.

Overview of Recent Developments. This section provides a description of the recent events impacting our results of operations.

Results of Operations. This section provides an analysis of our results of operations. As noted above, following the end of fiscal 2020, we transitioned to a December 31 fiscal year-end and accordingly we reported the nine-month period from April 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020 as a Transition Period. In providing analysis of the results of our operations, we have provided a comparison of our year ended December 31, 2021 to the twelve month period ended December 31, 2020, along with a comparison of the nine months ended December 31, 2020 included in the Transition Period to the nine month period ended December 31, 2019.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures. This section provides an explanation of certain financial measures we use that are not in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP").

Covenant Compliance. This section provides a discussion of certain restrictive covenants in our credit agreement.

Liquidity and Capital Resources. This section provides an analysis of our cash flows for our years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, and nine months ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, as well as a discussion of our indebtedness and its potential effects on our liquidity.

Tabular Disclosure of Contractual Obligations. This section provides a discussion of our commitments as of December 31, 2021.

Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk. This section discusses our exposure to potential losses arising from adverse changes in interest rates and foreign exchange rates.

Company Overview

After completion of the Spin-Off Transaction, we are a growth-oriented, pure-play water management business that designs, procures, manufactures, and markets what we believe is the broadest sustainable product portfolio of specification-driven water management solutions to improve health, human safety and the environment. Our product portfolio includes professional grade water safety and control, flow systems and hygienic and environmental products for public and private spaces that deliver superior value to building owners, positively impact the environment and human hygiene and reduce product installation time. Zurn's heritage of innovation and specification have allowed us to provide highly-engineered, mission-critical solutions to customers for decades and affords us the privilege of having long-term, valued relationships with market leaders. We operate in a disciplined way and the Zurn Business System (“ZBS”) is our operating philosophy. Grounded in the spirit of continuous improvement, ZBS creates a scalable, process-based framework that focuses on driving superior customer satisfaction and financial results by targeting world-class operating performance throughout all aspects of our business.

Refer to Item 1, Business for additional information.

Financial Statement Presentation

The following paragraphs provide a brief description of certain items and accounting policies that appear in our financial statements and general factors that impact these items.

Net Sales. Net sales represent gross sales less deductions taken for sales returns and allowances and incentive rebate programs.

Cost of Sales. Cost of sales includes all costs of manufacturing required to bring a product to a ready for sale condition. Such costs include direct and indirect materials, direct and indirect labor costs, including fringe benefits, supplies, utilities, depreciation, freight and shipping, insurance, pension and postretirement benefits, information technology costs and other manufacturing related costs.

The largest component of our cost of sales is cost of materials, which represented approximately 34% of net sales in the year ended December 31, 2021. We purchase a broad range of materials and components throughout the world in connection with our manufacturing activities. Major raw materials and components include brass, castings, copper, zinc, forgings, plate steel, high-performance engineered plastic and resin. We have a strategic sourcing program that is designed to significantly reduce the number of direct and indirect suppliers we use and to lower the cost of purchased materials.

Selling, General and Administrative Expenses. Selling, General and Administrative expenses primarily includes sales and marketing, finance and administration, engineering and technical services and warehousing. Our major cost elements include salary and wages, fringe benefits, insurance, depreciation, advertising, travel and information technology costs.

Critical Accounting Estimates

The methods, estimates and judgments we use in applying our critical accounting policies have a significant impact on the results we report in our consolidated financial statements. We evaluate our estimates and judgments on an on-going basis. We base our estimates on historical experience and on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Our experience and assumptions form the basis for our judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may vary from what we anticipate and different assumptions or estimates about the future could change our reported results. Within the context of these critical accounting policies, we are not currently aware of any reasonably likely event that would result in materially different amounts being reported.

We believe the following accounting policies are the most critical to us in that they are important to our financial statements and they require difficult, subjective and/or complex judgments in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements. For additional information, see Item 8, Note 2, Significant Accounting Policies to our consolidated financial statements.

Revenue recognition. Under Accounting Standards Codification ("ASC") 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers ("ASC 606"), a performance obligation is a promise in a contract to transfer a distinct good or service to the customer, and is the unit of account. A contract’s transaction price is allocated to each distinct performance obligation and revenue is recognized when obligations under the terms of a contract with the customer are satisfied. For our product sales, revenue is recognized at a point-in-time when control of the product is transferred to the customer, which generally occurs when the product is shipped from our manufacturing facility to the customer. When contracts include multiple products to be delivered to the customer, generally each product is separately priced and is determined to be distinct within the context of the contract. Other than a standard assurance-type warranty that the product will conform to agreed-upon specifications, there are generally no other significant post-shipment obligations. The expected costs associated with standard warranties continues is recognized as an expense when the products are sold.

When the contract provides the customer the right to return eligible products or when the customer is part of a sales rebate program, we reduce revenue at the point of sale using current facts and historical experience by using an estimate for expected product returns and rebates associated with the transaction. These estimates are adjusted at the earlier of when the most likely amount of consideration that is expected to be received changes or when the consideration becomes fixed. Accordingly, an increase or decrease to revenue is recognized at that time.

Sales and other taxes collected concurrent with revenue-producing activities are excluded from revenue. We have elected to recognize the cost for freight and shipping when control of products has transferred to the customer as a component of cost of sales in the consolidated statements of operations. We classify shipping and handling fees billed to our customers as net sales and the corresponding costs are classified as cost of sales in the consolidated statements of operations.

Receivables. Receivables are stated net of allowances for doubtful accounts of $1.2 million at December 31, 2021 and $0.8 million at December 31, 2020. We assesses the collectability of customer receivables based on the credit worthiness of a customer as determined by credit checks and analysis, as well as the customer’s payment history. In determining the allowance for doubtful accounts, we also consider various factors including the aging of customer accounts and historical write-offs. In addition, we monitor other risk factors, including forward-looking information when establishing adequate allowances for doubtful accounts, which reflects the current estimate of credit losses expected to be incurred over the life of the receivables. Generally, advance payment is not required. Allowances for doubtful accounts established are recorded within selling, general and administrative expenses within the consolidated statements of operations.

Inventory. Inventories are stated at the lower of cost or market. Market is determined based on estimated net realizable values. Approximately 84% and 75% of our total inventories as of December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020, respectively, were valued using the "last-in, first-out" (LIFO) method. All remaining inventories are valued using the "first-in, first-out" (FIFO) method.

In some cases we have determined a certain portion of our inventories are excess or obsolete. In those cases we write down the value of those inventories to their net realizable value based upon assumptions about future demand and market conditions. If actual market conditions are less favorable than those projected by management, additional inventory write-downs may be required. The total write-down of inventories charged to expense was $0.9 million, $1.5 million and $2.2 million, during the year ended December 31, 2021, the nine month Transition Period ended December 31, 2020 and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, respectively.

Purchase accounting and business combinations. Assets acquired and the liabilities assumed as part of a business combination are recognized separately from goodwill at their acquisition date fair values. Goodwill as of the acquisition date is measured as the excess of consideration transferred over the net of the acquisition date fair values of the assets acquired and the liabilities assumed. We review and consider input from outside specialists, if and when appropriate to develop discount rates, and use estimates and assumptions about the future performance of the business to accurately value assets acquired and liabilities assumed at the acquisition date. We may refine these estimates during the measurement period, which may be up to one year from the acquisition date. As a result, during the measurement period, we record adjustments to the assets acquired and liabilities assumed with the corresponding offset recorded to goodwill. Upon the conclusion of the measurement period or final determination of the values of the assets acquired or liabilities assumed, whichever comes first, any subsequent adjustments are recorded in our consolidated statements of operations.

Impairment of intangible assets and tangible fixed assets. The carrying value of long-lived assets, including amortizable intangible assets and tangible fixed assets, are evaluated for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the related carrying amounts may not be recoverable. Impairment of amortizable intangible assets and tangible fixed assets is generally determined by comparing projected undiscounted cash flows to be generated by the asset, or group of assets, to its carrying value. If impairment is identified, a loss is recorded equal to the excess of the asset's net book value over its fair value, and the cost basis is adjusted. Determination of the fair value requires various estimates including internal cash flow estimates generated from the asset, quoted market prices and appraisals as appropriate to determine fair

value. Actual results could vary from these estimates. During the year ended December 31, 2021, the nine month Transition Period ended December 31, 2020 and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, no impairment losses were recognized.

Goodwill, trademarks and certain tradenames have indefinite lives and are not amortized. However, the goodwill and intangible assets are tested annually for impairment, and may be tested more frequently if any triggering events occur that would reduce the recoverability of the asset. In conducting the annual impairment test for goodwill, we have the option to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether it is more likely than not (> 50% likelihood) the fair value of any reporting unit is less than its carrying amount. If a qualitative assessment determines an impairment is more likely than not, we are required to perform a quantitative impairment test. Otherwise, no further analysis is required. Alternatively, we may elect to proceed directly to the quantitative impairment test. In conducting a qualitative assessment, we use a discounted cash flow methodology based on future business projections and a market value approach (guideline public company comparables). We perform our goodwill impairment test by comparing the fair value of a reporting unit with its carrying amount. If the carrying amount exceeds the fair value of the reporting unit, an impairment charge is recognized for the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds the reporting unit's fair value up to the amount of the recorded goodwill.

During the fourth quarter of the year ended December 31, 2021, we completed our annual goodwill impairment test and elected to perform a qualitative assessment. No goodwill impairment charges were recorded during the year ended December 31, 2021, the nine month Transition Period ended December 31, 2020 and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020.

Retirement benefits. We have significant pension and post-retirement benefit income and expense and assets/liabilities that are developed from actuarial valuations. These valuations include key assumptions regarding discount rates, expected return on plan assets, mortality rates and the current health care cost trend rate. We consider current market conditions in selecting these assumptions. Changes in the related pension and post-retirement benefit income/costs or assets/liabilities may occur in the future due to changes in the assumptions and changes in asset values.

We recognize the net actuarial gains or losses in excess of unrecognized gain or loss exceeding 10 percent of the greater of the market-related value of plan assets or the plan's projected benefit obligation at re-measurement (the "corridor") in the Corporate segment operating results during the fourth quarter of each fiscal year (or upon any re-measurement date). During the year ended December 31, 2021, the nine month Transition Period ended December 31, 2020 and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, we recognized non-cash actuarial gain (loss) from continuing operations of $1.2 million, $(0.3) million and $(20.9) million, respectively, in connection with re-measurements of the plans. Net periodic benefit costs recorded on a quarterly basis are primarily comprised of service and interest cost, amortization of unrecognized prior service cost and the expected return on plan assets. See Item 8, Note 16, Retirement Benefits for additional information.

The obligation for postretirement benefits other than pension also is actuarially determined and is affected by assumptions including the discount rate and expected future increase in per capita costs of covered postretirement health care benefits. Changes in the discount rate and differences between actual and assumed per capita health care costs may affect the recorded amount of the expense in future periods.

Income taxes. We are subject to income taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes and recording the related deferred tax assets and liabilities.

We assess our income tax positions and record tax liabilities for all years subject to examination based upon management’s evaluation of the facts and circumstances and information available at the reporting dates. For those income tax positions where it is more-likely-than-not, based on technical merits, that a tax benefit will be sustained upon the conclusion of an examination, we have recorded the largest amount of tax benefit having a cumulatively greater than 50% likelihood of being realized upon ultimate settlement with the applicable taxing authority, assuming that it has full knowledge of all relevant information. For those tax positions which do not meet the more-likely-than-not threshold regarding the ultimate realization of the related tax benefit, no tax benefit has been recorded in the financial statements. In addition, we provide for interest and penalties, as applicable, and record such amounts as a component of the overall income tax provision. As of December 31, 2021 and 2020, our liability for unrecognized tax benefits was $5.9 million and $4.7 million, respectively.

We recognize deferred tax assets and liabilities based on the differences between the financial statement carrying amounts and the tax bases of assets and liabilities, net operating losses (“NOL’s”), tax credit and other carryforwards. We regularly review our deferred tax assets for recoverability and establish a valuation allowance based on historical losses, projected future taxable income and the expected timing of the reversals of existing temporary differences. As a result of this review, we established a full valuation allowance against U.S. federal and state capital loss carryforwards, as well as certain state tax credit carryforwards, and continue to maintain a partial valuation allowance against certain foreign NOL carryforwards and other related deferred tax assets, as well as certain U.S. state NOL carryforwards. As of December 31, 2021 and 2020, valuation allowances of $35.1 million and $36.8 million, respectively, were recorded against our deferred tax assets. See Item 8 Note 17, Income Taxes for additional information.

Commitments and Contingencies. We are subject to proceedings, lawsuits and other claims related to environmental, labor, product and other matters. We are required to assess the likelihood of any adverse judgments or outcomes to these matters as well as potential ranges of probable losses. We determine the amount of accruals needed, if any, for each individual issue based on our professional knowledge and experience and discussions with legal counsel. The required accruals may change in the future due to new developments in each matter, the ultimate resolution of each matter or changes in approach, such as change in strategy.

Accruals are recorded on our consolidated balance sheets to reflect our contractual liabilities relating to warranty commitments to our customers. We provide warranty coverage at various lengths and terms to our customers depending on standard offerings and negotiated contractual agreements. We accrue an estimate for warranty expense at the time of sale based on historical warranty return rates and repair costs. Should future warranty experience differ materially from our historical experience, we may be required to record additional warranty accruals which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations in the period in which these additional accruals are required.

As noted in Item 8, Note 18, Commitments and Contingencies, certain subsidiaries are subject to asbestos litigation. As a result, we have recorded a liability for pending and potential future asbestos claims, as well as a receivable for insurance coverage of such liability. The valuation of our potential asbestos liability was based on the number and severity of future asbestos claims, future settlement costs, and the effectiveness of defense strategies and settlement initiatives.

We estimate that our available insurance to cover our potential asbestos liability as of December 31, 2021, is greater than our potential asbestos liability. This conclusion was reached after considering our experience in asbestos litigation, the insurance payments made to date by our insurance carriers, existing insurance policies, the industry ratings of the insurers and the advice of insurance coverage counsel with respect to applicable insurance coverage law relating to the terms and conditions of those policies. We used these same considerations when evaluating the recoverability of our receivable for insurance coverage of potential asbestos claims.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

See Item 8, Note 2, Significant Accounting Policies regarding recent accounting pronouncements.

Overview of Recent Developments

COVID-19 pandemic

We continue to manage through the ongoing and unpredictable Covid-19 pandemic, which continues to impact countries in which we do business and worldwide economic activity. Our suppliers, business partners and customers have at times experienced negative impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic. Global supply chains have been disrupted, causing shortages and at times delays in receipt of product. This disruption of our employees, distributors, suppliers and customers has historically impacted and may continue to impact our sales and future operating results. We remain focused on the health and well-being of our employees and have undertaken numerous actions within our offices and manufacturing sites that are intended to minimize the spread of COVID-19.

While the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic is currently unknown and it is not possible at this time to estimate the scope and severity of the impact that the pandemic could have on our operations, the measures taken, and those that may be taken in the future, by the governments of countries affected, actions taken to protect employees, changes in customer buying patterns and the impact of the pandemic on various business activities in affected countries and the economy generally, it could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Discontinued Operations

During the year ended December 31, 2021, we completed the spin-off of our PMC platform. The operating results of PMC are reported as discontinued operations in our consolidated statements of operations for all periods presented, as the Spin-Off Transaction represented a strategic shift that had a major impact on our operations and financial results. The terms of the operative agreements governing the Spin-Off Transaction included targeted working capital and cash balances at closing of the transaction, which are subject to adjustment after determining final working capital and cash balances held by PMC on that date. As of the date of this filing, no such adjustments have been made or asserted.

The major components of the Income from discontinued operations, net of tax presented in the consolidated statements of operations during the year ended December 31, 2021, the nine month Transition Period ended December 31, 2020 and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 are included in the table below (in millions):

Year Ended (1) Nine Month Transition Period Ended Year Ended

Selling, general and administrative expenses 260.2 168.0 236.4

Restructuring and other similar charges 1.9 12.9 14.3

Amortization of intangible assets 9.9 10.1 14.5

Interest expense, net 4.1 3.3 2.0

Gain on extinguishment of debt — — (3.0)

Actuarial loss on pension and postretirement benefit obligations 4.8 1.3 15.7

Other non-operating (income) expenses, net (5.6) (6.4) 4.4

Income from discontinued operations before income tax 99.1 109.2 211.1

Equity method investment income 0.3 0.2 —

Non-controlling interest income (0.2) (0.4) (0.3)

Income from discontinued operations, net of tax $ 71.2 $ 83.2 $ 161.1

____________________

(1)Results of operations during the year ended December 31, 2021 reflect the period from January 1, 2021 through October 4, 2021, the date on which the Spin-Off Transaction of PMC was completed.

During the year ended March 31, 2019, we completed the sale of the VAG business, which was previously included within the Water Management platform. The operating results of the VAG business are reported as discontinued operations in the consolidated statements of operations for all periods presented, as the sale of VAG represented a strategic shift that had a major impact on operations and financial results. The sale price was subject to customary working capital and cash balance adjustments, which were finalized in the year ended March 31, 2020. As a result of these adjustments and other related costs, we recognized an additional $1.8 million loss on the sale of discontinued operations for the year ended March 31, 2020.

The terms of the sale agreement provided the opportunity to receive contingent consideration, based on, and subject to, the VAG business attainment of Earn-out EBITDA, as defined in the sale agreement. During the year ended December 31, 2021, we received a $4.2 million cash payment as a result of the VAG businesses performance in its fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, which represented the final period of the Earn-out, and was recorded within income from discontinued operations, net of tax in its consolidated statements of operations.

See Item 8, Note 4, Discontinued Operations for more information.

Restructuring and Other Similar Costs

During the year ended December 31, 2021, we continued to execute various restructuring actions. These initiatives were intended to drive efficiencies and reduce operating costs while also modifying our footprint to reflect changes in the markets we serve, the impact of acquisitions on our overall manufacturing capacity and the refinement of our overall product portfolio. These restructuring actions primarily resulted in workforce reductions, lease termination costs, and other facility rationalization costs. We expect to continue executing similar initiatives to optimize our operating margin and manufacturing footprint. As such, we expect further expenses related to workforce reductions, potential impairment of assets, lease termination costs, and other facility rationalization costs.

We recorded restructuring charges of $3.7 million, $1.7 million and $1.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, the nine month Transition Period ended December 31, 2020 and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, respectively. See Item 8, Note 5, Restructuring and Other Similar Costs for more information.

Results of Operations

Year Ended December 31, 2021 Compared with the Year Ended December 31, 2020

Net sales

(Dollars in Millions)

Year Ended

Net sales were $910.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, a 22.1% increase year over year. Excluding a 1% increase to net sales associated with foreign currency translation and an 8% increase in net sales resulting from our prior-year acquisition of Hadrian and the 2021 acquisition of Wade, core net sales increased 13% year over year. The increase in core net sales was driven by increased demand across the majority of our product categories.

Income from operations

(Dollars in Millions)

Year Ended

Income from operations was $107.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, or 11.7% of net sales, compared to income from operations of $107.7 million, or 14.4% of net sales, for the year ended December 31, 2020. Income from operations as a percentage of net sales decreased 270 basis points year-over-year as the favorable impact of sales year over year was more than offset by the year-over-year change in the adjustment to state inventories at last-in-first-out cost, higher year-over-year non-cash stock based compensation expense, the mix impact of the Hadrian acquisition and the benefit of temporary cost reduction actions in the prior year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interest expense, net

Interest expense, net was $34.7 million during the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $45.9 million during the year ended December 31, 2020, primarily due to lower outstanding borrowings following the Spin-Off Transaction refinancing. See Item 8, Note 11 Long-Term Debt for more information.

Loss on extinguishment of debt

During the year ended December 31, 2021, we recognized a $20.4 million loss on the extinguishment of debt in connection with the refinancing of our debt in connection with the Spin-Off Transaction. The loss on extinguishment of debt was comprised of $16.2 million of refinancing related costs, as well as a non-cash write-off of unamortized debt issuance costs associated with the previously outstanding debt of $4.2 million. See Item 8, Note 11 Long-Term Debt for more information. There was no loss on the extinguishment of debt recognized during the year ended December 31, 2020.

Actuarial (gain) loss on pension and postretirement benefit obligations

Actuarial gain on pension and postretirement benefit obligations for the year ended December 31, 2021, was $(1.2) million compared to a loss of $21.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The non-cash actuarial gain recognized for the year ended December 31, 2021, was primarily due to a year over year increase in discount rates assumptions utilized in performing the annual remeasurement of our defined benefit plans. The non-cash actuarial loss recognized for the year ended December 31, 2020, was primarily due to favorable asset performance and contributions made to the plan partially offset by decreases in the year over year discount rate assumptions utilized within the annual remeasurement of our defined benefit plans. See Item 8, Note 16 Retirement Benefits for more information.

Other expense, net

Other expense, net for the year ended December 31, 2021, was $0.7 million compared to other expense, net of $2.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. Other expense, net consists primarily of gains and losses from foreign currency transactions and the non-service cost components of net periodic benefit costs associated with our defined benefit plans. The year-over-year change is primarily driven by changes in foreign currency rates and lower interest cost within the non-service cost components of our defined benefit plans.

Provision for income taxes

The income tax provision for the year ended December 31, 2021 was $2.7 million, or an effective tax rate of 5.2%. The effective income tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2021 was below the U.S. federal statutory rate of 21% primarily due to the recognition of income tax benefits associated with share-based payments partially offset by the accrual of foreign income taxes, which are generally above the U.S. federal statutory rate, the accrual of additional income taxes associated with compensation deduction limitations under Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code, the increase in the valuation allowance associated with certain state net operating loss carryforwards, the accrual of unrecognized income tax benefits in which such realization is not deemed more-likely-than-not and the accrual of various state income taxes. The income tax provision for the year ended December 31, 2020 was $9.5 million, or an effective tax rate of 24.9%. The effective income tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2020 was above the U.S. federal statutory rate of 21% primarily due to the accrual of foreign income taxes, which are generally above the U.S. federal statutory rate, the accrual of additional income taxes associated with compensation deduction limitations under Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code and the accrual of various state income taxes, partially offset by the recognition of income tax benefits associated with share-based payments.

Net income from continuing operations

Our net income from continuing operations for the year ended December 31, 2021, was $49.7 million, compared to net income from continuing operations of $28.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2020, as a result of the factors described above. Diluted net income per share from continuing operations was $0.40 for the year ended December 31, 2021, as compared to $0.23 per share for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Net income attributable to Zurn common stockholders

Our net income attributable to Zurn common stockholders for the year ended December 31, 2021, was $120.9 million compared to $146.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. Diluted net income per share attributable to Zurn common stockholders was $0.97 for the year ended December 31, 2021, compared to $1.19 for the year ended December 31, 2020. The income from discontinued operations, net of tax, was $71.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to $118.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The year-over-year change in net income from discontinued operations, net of tax, is due to the PMC results for the year ended December 31, 2021 only representing activity through the Spin-Off Transaction date and the recognition of approximately $60.0 million in costs associated with completing the Spin-Off Transaction. The year-over-year change in net income attributable to Zurn common stockholders is primarily the result of the factors described above.

Nine Months Ended December 31, 2020 Compared with the Nine Months Ended December 31, 2019

Net sales

(Dollars in Millions)

Nine Months Ended

Net sales were $562.7 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2020, a 6.8% increase year over year. Excluding a 4% increase in net sales associated with our acquisitions of Just Manufacturing and Hadrian, core net sales increased 3% year over year. The increase in core net sales was primarily the result of increased demand for our touchless and hygienic solutions partially offset by reduced overall market demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Income (loss) from operations

(Dollars in Millions)

Nine Months Ended

Income from operations was $81.0 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2020, or 14.4% of net sales, compared to income from operations of $77.4 million, or 14.7% of net sales, for the nine months ended December 31, 2019. Income from operations as a percentage of net sales decreased 30 basis points year-over-year as incremental restructuring costs, purchase accounting fair value adjustments and non-cash stock option expense more than offset the incremental profit generated on higher sales and benefits associated with our ongoing cost reduction and productivity initiatives.

Interest expense, net

Interest expense, net was $33.3 million during the nine months ended December 31, 2020 compared to $44.0 million in during the nine months ended December 31, 2019. The decrease in interest expense as compared to the prior year's period is primarily a result of the impact of lower outstanding borrowings and lower average interest rates following the $100.0 million voluntary prepayment and refinancing of our term loan in 2019. See Item 8, Note 11 Long-Term Debt for more information.

Loss on extinguishment of debt

During the nine months ended December 31, 2019, we recognized a $2.0 million loss on the extinguishment of debt in connection with the refinancing of our term loan and a $100.0 million voluntary prepayment made on our term loan during the period. There were no gains or losses on debt extinguishment recognized during the nine month ended December 31, 2020.

Actuarial loss on pension and postretirement benefit obligations

Actuarial loss on pension and postretirement benefit obligations for the nine months ended December 31, 2020 was $0.3 million. There were no gains or losses on pension and postretirement benefits during the nine months ended December 31, 2019. The non-cash actuarial loss recognized for the nine months ended December 31, 2020, was primarily due to favorable asset performance and contributions made to the plan partially offset by decreases in the discount rate assumptions utilized within the annual remeasurement of our defined benefit plans. See Item 8, Note 16 Retirement Benefits for more information.

Other expense, net

Other expense, net for the nine months ended December 31, 2020 was $1.9 million compared to other expense, net of $0.6 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2019. Other expense, net consists primarily of gains and losses from foreign currency transactions and the non-service cost components of net periodic benefit costs associated with our defined benefit plans.

Provision for income taxes

The income tax provision for the nine months ended December 31, 2020 was $10.5 million, or an effective tax rate of 23.1%. The effective income tax rate for the nine months ended December 31, 2020 was above the U.S. federal statutory rate of 21% primarily due to the accrual of foreign income taxes, which are generally above the U.S. federal statutory rate, the accrual of additional income taxes associated with compensation deduction limitations under Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue

Code and the accrual of various state income taxes, partially offset by the recognition of income tax benefits associated with share-based payments and the reduction of the valuation allowance associated with certain state net operating loss carryforwards. The income tax provision for the nine months ended December 31, 2019 was $5.4 million, or an effective tax rate of 17.5%. The effective income tax rate for the nine months ended December 31, 2019 was below the U.S. federal statutory rate of 21% primarily due to the recognition of certain previously unrecognized tax benefits generally due to the lapse of the applicable statutes of limitations and the recognition of income tax benefits associated with share-based payments, partially offset by the accrual of foreign income taxes, which are generally above the U.S. federal statutory rate, the accrual of additional income taxes associated with compensation deduction limitations under Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code and the accrual of various state income taxes.

Net income from continuing operations

Our net income from continuing operations for the nine months ended December 31, 2020 was $35.0 million, compared to net income from continuing operations of $25.4 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2019, as a result of the factors described above. Diluted net income per share from continuing operations was $0.28 for the nine months ended December 31, 2020, as compared to $0.10 per share for the nine months ended December 31, 2019.

Net income attributable to Zurn common stockholders

Our net income attributable to Zurn common stockholders for the nine months ended December 31, 2020, was $118.2 million compared to $137.2 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2019. Diluted net income per share attributable to Zurn common stockholders was $0.96 for the nine months ended December 31, 2020, compared to $1.24 for the nine months ended December 31, 2019. The income from discontinued operations, net of tax, was $83.2 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2020 compared to $126.2 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2019. The year-over-year change in net income attributable to Zurn common stockholders is primarily the result of the factors described above, partially offset by the reduction of dividends paid on shares of preferred stock, which were converted to common stock during the nine months ended December 31, 2019.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Non-GAAP financial measures are intended to supplement and not replace financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Core sales

Core sales excludes the impact of acquisitions (such as the Hadrian, Just Manufacturing, Stainlessdrains.com, and World Dryer acquisitions), divestitures (such as PMC) and foreign currency translation. Management believes that core sales facilitates easier and more meaningful comparisons of our net sales performance with prior and future periods and to our peers. We exclude the effect of acquisitions and divestitures because the nature, size and number of acquisitions and divestitures can vary dramatically from period to period and between us and our peers, and can also obscure underlying business trends and make comparisons of long-term performance difficult. We exclude the effect of foreign currency translation from this measure because the volatility of currency translation is not under management's control.

EBITDA

ZWS US Equity

ZWS · 10-K · period ended 2021-12-31

ITEM 1. BUSINESS.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS.

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS.

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES.

ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.

ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES.

ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES.

ITEM 6.

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.

ZWS US Equity☆

ZWS · 10-K · period ended 2021-12-31

ITEM 1. BUSINESS.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS.

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS.

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES.

ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.

ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES.

ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES.

ITEM 6.

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.

ZWS US Equity