Rick, Edric, and Angie will provide an overview of our fourth quarter and full-year results, which were released earlier this morning, and discuss our priorities and outlook for fiscal 2026. This increase was driven by sustained momentum in the underground construction business and better-than-anticipated growth in snow and ice management. This reflected year-over-year earnings improvement in both segments, offset by higher expense related to the restoration of employee incentive compensation. For the full year, we hit the higher end of our net sales guidance, reporting total consolidated net sales of $4.5 billion.
We delivered adjusted earnings per diluted share of $4.20, beating both our current-year EPS guidance of about $4.15 and $4.17 reported last year. Through our focus on key growth markets and deliberate actions to improve productivity, we are strengthening our competitive position and accelerating our performance. Specifically, we continue to invest in our Golf and Grounds and underground specialty construction businesses, reflecting the multi-year secular growth trajectory we anticipate for those markets. Our acquisition of Tornado Infrastructure Equipment, which closed last week, is a great example of the strategic investments we are making to better serve customers facing complex infrastructure projects.
Largely due to improvements in working capital, our free cash flow for the year was a record $578 million. Collectively, our actions are enhancing our customers' productivity, strengthening our operations and market-leading position, and sustaining our profitable growth. Now, Angie will share additional insights for our fourth quarter and full-year results and provide our outlook for 2026. As a result, our full-year 2025 sales and earnings also outperformed our guidance.