Letter from Giordano Albertazzi and David M. Cote

To Our Shareholders 

As we reflect on the world’s rapidly accelerating innovation and growth over the past year, two things have become abundantly clear: technology remains at the forefront of nearly every aspect of our lives and business, and the global demand for data has never been greater and will continue to grow. We believe this demand will drive data center capacity growth at a scale the industry has never experienced, requiring more of Vertiv’s industry-leading solutions and services. We are ready!

Vertiv remains committed to delivering systems, solutions, and services that not only address today’s challenges, but also enable our customers to be ready for tomorrow’s technologies and opportunities in an ever-evolving and rapidly growing industry. 

The year’s strong financial performance validates our strategic direction and our pursuit of operational excellence and execution. We expanded our manufacturing footprint and capacity, enhanced our systems and services offerings, and further deepened our strategic relationships with our customers, suppliers, and technology partners alike.

Our continued investment in engineering, research and development has strengthened our innovation pipeline, resulting in technologies that support AI and high-density computing deployment at scale, while enabling future-ready data center infrastructure. We’re well-positioned to capitalize on the robust market opportunities ahead and create sustained short- and long-term value for our shareholders.

2024: By the numbers⁽¹⁾

The story of 2024 is one of strong execution and transformation, building on the momentum we established in 2023 and propelling our long-term financial framework forward. What began as a journey to institutionalize operational excellence has evolved into a remarkable demonstration of Vertiv’s ability to deliver sustained, profitable growth at scale.

Our financial performance is proof of this transformation. Net sales reached a record ~$8.0 billion, representing ~17% growth over 2023, driven by robust demand across our portfolio and deepening customer relationships. This strong top-line performance, combined with our relentless focus on operational execution, translated into substantial profitability improvements. Operating profit grew 57% to $1,367 million, while adjusted operating profit grew 47% to $1,552 million. Perhaps the most telling performance metric was our adjusted operating margin expansion of approximately 410 basis points to 19.4% – a clear indication that our laser focus on operational improvement initiatives are delivering meaningful results.

The strength of our execution is particularly evident in our cash generation. Adjusted free cash flow reached ~$1.1 billion, a 46% increase from the previous year, even as we continued to invest aggressively in innovation and capacity expansion. This robust cash generation, combined with disciplined capital management, enabled us to achieve a 2024 year-end net leverage ratio of 1.0x, providing us with financial flexibility to pursue growth opportunities.

These numbers represent the translation of our strategic focus and the executional dedication of our global team. Our ability to scale efficiently while maintaining operational discipline is also enabling us to achieve the longer-term financial targets from our five-year framework, such as targeting organic growth of 12-14% annually and delivering adjusted operating margins of 25% by 2029, up from approximately 19% in 2024. 

A growing market aligned with Vertiv’s strengths

The digital world is experiencing an unprecedented transformation. We project the data center market to grow at a 10-13% compound annual growth rate over the next five years, with the cloud and colocation segment surging even more aggressively at 15-17%. This is not just growth – it’s a fundamental reshaping of the digital infrastructure landscape, driven by the convergence of AI adoption, acceleration in data generation, and the critical need for high-density and expedited computing capabilities.

Our investments in global manufacturing capacity and capabilities, including strategic expansions across multiple geographies, demonstrate our commitment to meeting both current and future demand. In the hyperscale and colocation segments, where the ability to scale is paramount, Vertiv’s ability to deliver consistently at a global level sets us apart as a true and trusted partner for our customers.

The convergence of ongoing digitization, energy transition technology, and the AI revolution has created a perfect alignment of opportunity. Vertiv isn’t just positioned to benefit from these trends – we are essential to enabling them. With our superior capabilities, global presence, and relentless focus on innovation, we are not only participating in the market’s transformation – we are leading it.

Leading innovation

Our ability to provide end-to-end solutions across the entire power train and thermal chain is a critical advantage in meeting the unprecedented need for power and cooling, as well as helping our customers scale and meet the challenges of high-density computing with more demanding data workloads. Our unique ability to seamlessly integrate and customize complex systems on a global scale makes us the definitive choice for the most demanding infrastructure challenges.

In the critical race to manage AI’s thermal challenges, Vertiv is setting the pace. Our acquisition of CoolTerra and the launch of the industry-leading Vertiv™ CoolChip CDU systems enable the next generation of AI computing. We have created and are expanding an engineering group with the best and brightest minds in the industry while evolving the portfolio and capacity at unprecedented speed. 

We’re redefining deployment speed and efficiency through our innovative prefabricated modular solutions. The Vertiv™ PowerNexus delivers game-changing space efficiency and deployment capabilities that transform how our customers scale their operations. We enable growth, we simplify on-site building, and we optimize our customers’ time to revenue.

Key industry collaboration

Partnering with key industry leaders to build the future of AI infrastructure 

Vertiv’s strategic collaborations are key to shaping the future of digital infrastructure. By working alongside the most influential technology providers, we accelerate innovation, simplify complexity, and guide customers through the infrastructure transformation demanded by AI. 

As a Solution Advisor in the NVIDIA Partner Network (NPN), Vertiv delivers expert design, deployment, and operational support for the digital infrastructure that powers NVIDIA technologies. This designation places us among an elite group of global leaders helping customers adopt next-generation compute architectures with confidence. 

Together with NVIDIA, we develop reference architectures that enable enterprises to evolve traditional data centers into AI factories—future-ready environments designed to power AI-driven products, services, and experiences. Our co-developed critical power and cooling reference architectures, exemplified by the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 design, are engineered to deliver:

• Rapid Deployment and Retrofit – Modular designs that simplify integration into both new builds and retrofit environments, while maximizing space efficiency. 
• Energy-Efficient Cooling – Advanced thermal strategies that support high-density compute workloads while reducing environmental impact.
• Installation and Operations Services – Provide seamless implementation, optimized performance, and ongoing operational confidence with our industry-leading scale of ~4,000 field service engineers and specialist project delivery teams. 

Our partnership with Compass Datacenters, a leading developer of hyperscale campuses, further underscores our role in thermal innovation. Together, we introduced Vertiv™ CoolPhase Flex, a first-of-its-kind hybrid cooling solution that combines refrigerant-based air and liquid cooling into a single, flexible system—supporting a wide range of thermal demands while simplifying deployment. 

Vertiv’s long history of partnering with the world’s most trusted OEMs, cloud providers, and solution integrators reflects our unique ability to scale innovation and deliver real business value. These relationships, combined with our AI infrastructure expertise, help customers move quickly and decisively. 

Through our five AI imperatives—be transformative, be efficient, be first, be confident, and be future-ready—we provide our customers with a proven framework for navigating the infrastructure challenges of AI and unlocking long-term growth.

Expansion through operational excellence

In 2024, we continued to develop and deploy the Vertiv Operating System (VOS) across the company, realizing operational efficiencies and productivity improvements throughout the business. We’re rigorously adopting lean methodologies to reduce waste, increase velocity and improve productivity throughout the organization and building resiliency into everything Vertiv does – from our supply chain to how we design and develop our products. These are foundational elements of our relentless pursuit of operational excellence, embedded in every facet of our culture. While there’s headroom ahead, VOS serves as a competitive differentiator by empowering us to provide stronger customer service through shorter cycle times, superior order and project management, and much more. VOS is more than a core tenet of our value story. It’s a competitive differentiator. 

We expanded our capacity, footprint, and capabilities to meet both current commitments and accelerating customer demand for data center infrastructure. In doing so, we’re expediting our time to market through prefabricated and pre-engineered solutions. 

Our capacity increased across our portfolio of technologies, including switchgear and busbar, thermal management, and integrated modular solutions. Our new manufacturing facilities in Pune, India and Pelzer (South Carolina, USA) demonstrate our commitment to having the right capacity in the right places. For example, our facility in South Carolina significantly enhances our ability to deliver integrated modular solutions, while reducing on-site labor requirements and time to market through prefabricated and pre-engineered solutions. 

We also completed the acquisition of BSE in 2024, which expands our global thermal solutions portfolio with proven technologies in chillers, heat pumps, heat-recovery solutions, and air-handling units. Vertiv can scale these important technologies to give customers portfolio choice and global capacity to meet their needs. Scale matters, particularly in the fast-growing hyperscale and colocation segments of the market, and Vertiv’s unique ability to scale efficiently and globally is a key competitive advantage recognized by our partners and customers.

Looking ahead

We concluded 2024 on a high note, setting the stage for an even greater trajectory in 2025 and beyond. Our team embodies an execution mindset, a bias towards velocity, and a sense of urgency in leading the industry towards a connected digital future. 

2025 will be a year of robust acceleration at Vertiv and in the data center industry. This potential for ongoing value creation is especially pronounced given the growth driven by the AI and high-performance computing tailwinds. As the provider of end-to-end power and cooling solutions and services, Vertiv is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this growth and deliver critical digital infrastructure to support the digital revolution that is still in its earliest days. On the heels of another strong financial performance in 2024, we look forward to continuing to move the industry forward and raise the bar for what’s possible in an ever-changing world.

Forward-Looking Statements 

This letter contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements relating to our long-term financial targets, projections regarding the data center market, our capacity, expectations with respect to growth, recently completed acquisitions, and research and development, and others. These statements are only predictions and actual events or results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements set forth herein. Readers are referred to Vertiv’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for a discussion of these and other important risk factors concerning Vertiv and its operations. Vertiv is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 

[1]This letter contains certain non-GAAP metrics. For reconciliations to the relevant GAAP measures and an explanation of the non-GAAP measures and reasons for their use, please refer to Annex A in the Company’s proxy statement, filed on April 25, 2025.