Transdigm Group Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
November 15, 2021

Key Takeaways

  • TransDigm delivered a solid Q4 with a 49.7% EBITDA margin, 14% sequential growth in commercial aftermarket revenue, and generated nearly $300 million of operating cash flow, ending the quarter with $4.8 billion in cash.
  • Commercial aerospace showed clear signs of recovery as domestic leisure travel drove a 41% year-over-year rise in aftermarket revenues, and management now plans for 20–30% growth in commercial aftermarket sales and significant OEM growth in fiscal 2022.
  • The defense segment remains resilient, with fourth-quarter revenues up 2% and full-year growth of 5%, and is expected to expand by low single digits in fiscal 2022 on the strength of the current order book.
  • Partial guidance for fiscal 2022 includes a full-year EBITDA margin of roughly 47%, interest expense around $1.08 billion, an adjusted tax rate of 26–28%, and free cash flow of approximately $1 billion, which should drive net debt/EBITDA down toward 6x.
  • On capital allocation, TransDigm exited its potential Meggitt bid due to limited due diligence, remains disciplined in pursuing small- to mid-size acquisitions, and does not plan any share repurchases or dividends over the next quarter.
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Earnings Conference Call
Transdigm Group Q4 2021
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the TransDigm Group Incorporated Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. Now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Jaimie Stemen, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jaimie Stemen
Jaimie Stemen
Director of Investor Relations at TransDigm Group

Thank you, and welcome to TransDigm's Fiscal 2021 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Presenting on the call this morning are TransDigm's President and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Stein, Chief Operating Officer, Jorge Valladares, and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Lisman. Please visit our website at transdigm.com to obtain a supplemental slide deck and call replay information. Before we begin, the company would like to remind you that statements made during this call which are not historical in fact are forward-looking statements. For further information about important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the company's latest filings with the SEC available through the Investor section of our website or at sec.gov.

Jaimie Stemen
Jaimie Stemen
Director of Investor Relations at TransDigm Group

The company would also like to advise you that during the course of the call, we will be referring to EBITDA, specifically EBITDA as defined, adjusted net income, and adjusted earnings per share, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures. Please see the tables and related footnotes in the earnings release for a presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP measures and applicable reconciliation. I will now turn the call over to Kevin.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Good morning. Thanks for calling in today. First, I'll start off with a quick overview of our strategy, a summary of a few significant items in the quarter, and discuss our fiscal 2022 outlook. Then Jorge and Mike will give additional color on the quarter. Jorge Valladares is joining our earnings call today and will do so going forward. Jorge is currently our Chief Operating Officer and has been in the role since 2019. Over the last 20+ years with TransDigm, Jorge has had an unusually broad operating background and has been a key culture carrier. He most recently served as our COO of Power & Control, where all of the power group businesses reported to Jorge. Prior to this role, he served four years as an Executive Vice President and was President at two of our larger operating units, AvtechTyee and AdelWiggins.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Jorge initially started at AdelWiggins Group and held various positions of increasing responsibility in engineering, manufacturing, and sales as he worked his way up. We're excited to have him join the earnings call and offer his expertise. Now moving on to the business of today. To reiterate, we are unique in the industry in both the consistency of our strategy in good and bad times, as well as our steady focus on intrinsic shareholder value creation through all phases of the aerospace cycle. This should sound similar to what you have always heard from TransDigm. To summarize, here are some of the reasons why we believe this. About 90% of our net sales are generated by proprietary products, and over three-quarters of our net sales come from products for which we believe we are the sole source provider.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Most of our EBITDA comes from aftermarket revenues, which generally have significant higher margins and, over any extended period, have typically provided relative stability in the downturns. We follow a consistent long-term strategy. Specifically, we own and operate proprietary aerospace businesses with significant aftermarket content. We utilize a simple, well-proven, value-based operating methodology. We have a decentralized organization structure and unique compensation system closely aligned with shareholders. We acquire businesses that fit this strategy and where we see a clear path to private equity-like returns. Our capital structure and allocations are a key part of our value creation methodology. Our long-standing goal is to give our shareholders private equity-like returns with the liquidity of a public market. To do this, we stay focused on both the details of value creation as well as careful allocation of our capital.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

As you saw from our earnings release, we had a good quarter considering the market environment. We continue to see recovery in the commercial aerospace market and are encouraged by the trends in air traffic, among other factors. Our current Q4 results continue to show positive growth in comparison as we are lapping another fiscal 2020 quarter fully impacted by the pandemic. However, our results continue to be unfavorably affected in comparison to pre-pandemic levels due to the reduced demand for air travel. On a more encouraging note, the commercial aerospace industry has continued to show signs of recovery with increasing air traffic and vaccination rates expanding. The recovery has remained primarily driven by domestic leisure travel, though we are optimistic for the recovery of international travel as more governments across the world soften travel restrictions.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

In our business, we saw another quarter of sequential improvement in commercial aftermarket revenues, with total commercial aftermarket revenues up 14% over Q3. I am also very pleased that even in this challenging commercial environment, we continue to sequentially expand our EBITDA as defined margin. Contributing to this increase is the continued recovery in our commercial aftermarket revenues as well as the careful management of our cost structure and focus on our operating strategy. Additionally, we continued to generate significant cash in Q4. We had strong operating cash flow generation of almost $300 million and closed the quarter with approximately $4.8 billion of cash. We expect to steadily generate significant additional cash through 2022. We continue to look at possible M&A opportunities and are always attentive to our capital allocation.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Both the M&A and capital markets are always difficult to predict, but especially so in these times. First, I'd like to address the Meggitt situation that occurred this quarter. We have long admired and studied the Meggitt business and believe that a combination between us and Meggitt could provide value to investors of both companies. However, based on the quite limited due diligence information that was made available and the resulting uncertainties, we could not conclude that moving forward with an offer of GBP 9.00 per Meggitt share would meet our long-standing goals for value creation and investor returns. We put substantial time and effort into evaluating this potential transaction as we had communicated previously.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

However, as we have said many times before, we are very disciplined with our capital allocation, and when we make acquisitions, we need a reasonable degree of certainty for achieving our investment return goals, especially for a deal of this magnitude. The diligence made available to us was too limited to provide the assurance needed to move forward, and our additional diligence requests were not met. These additional diligence requests were very similar to what was typically received in the almost 90 acquisitions we have done over the life of the company. It was a disappointment that we could not move forward, but it was the most prudent decision for the company and all of our stakeholders. In regard to the current M&A pipeline, we are still actively looking for M&A opportunities that fit our model.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Acquisition opportunities in the last quarter were still slower than pre-COVID, but we are starting to see some pickup in activity. We remain confident that there is a long runway for acquisitions that fit our portfolio, primarily in the small to midsize opportunities, and look forward to continued M&A activity far into the future. At this time, we don't anticipate that we make any significant dividends or share buybacks for at least the next quarter, but we will keep watching and see if our views change. Now moving to our outlook for 2022. While we are not providing full financial guidance at this time as a result of the continued disruption in our primary commercial end markets, we are providing guidance on select financial metrics for fiscal 2022, including EBITDA as defined margins, expected defense market revenue, growth, tax rates, and other key financial assumptions.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

We do continue to be encouraged by the recovery we have seen in both our commercial OEM and aftermarket revenues and bookings in fiscal 2021, but many unknowns remain for the pace and shape of the recovery. We will look to reinstitute guidance when we have a clearer picture of the future. Currently, we expect COVID-19 to continue to have an adverse impact on our financial results compared to pre-pandemic levels into fiscal 2022, under the assumption that both our commercial OEM and aftermarket customer demand will remain depressed due to lower worldwide air travel. Although recent positive trends in commercial air traffic could impact us favorably. Given what we know today, our teams are planning for our commercial aftermarket revenue to grow in the 20%-30% range.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

We expect our commercial OEM revenue to grow significantly as well, but at a rate slightly less than the commercial aftermarket. As you know, we aim to be conservative and would be happy to have both of these end markets rebound more strongly. Jorge will provide further detail on a few key points of consideration that will drive our ultimate commercial growth. As for the defense market, we expect defense revenue growth in the low single-digit percent range versus fiscal 2022. Now a bit more color on EBITDA as defined expectations for fiscal 2022. We expect full-year fiscal 2022 EBITDA margins to be roughly in the area of 47%, which could be higher or lower based on the rate of commercial aftermarket recovery. This guidance assumes a steady increase in commercial aftermarket revenue throughout fiscal 2022, with Q1 being the lowest.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

In similar fashion, we anticipated EBITDA margins will move up throughout fiscal 2022, with Q1 being the lowest and sequentially lower than Q4. As a final note, this margin guidance includes the unfavorable headwind of our recent Cobham acquisition of about 0.5%. As a reminder, and consistent with past years, with roughly 10% less working days than the subsequent quarters, fiscal year 2022 Q1 revenues, EBITDA margins, are anticipated to be lower than the other three quarters of fiscal year 2022. We believe we are well-positioned as we enter fiscal 2022. As usual, we'll closely watch the aerospace and capital markets development and react accordingly. Let me conclude by stating that I'm pleased with the company's performance in this challenging time for the commercial aerospace industry and with our commitment to driving value for our stakeholders.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

The commercial aerospace market recovery continues to progress, and current trends are encouraging. There is still uncertainty about the pace of the recovery, but the team remains focused on controlling what we can control. We remain confident that in the fullness of time, the commercial aerospace market will return to pre-pandemic levels. We look forward to fiscal 2022 and the opportunity to create value for our stakeholders through our consistent strategy. Now let me hand it over to Jorge to review our recent performance and a few other items.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for the kind introduction, Kevin. I'm glad to be speaking with all of you today and look forward to being on these calls in the future. I'll start with our typical review of results by key market category. For the remainder of the call, I'll provide color commentary on a pro forma basis compared to the prior year period in 2020. That is, assuming we own the same mix of businesses in both periods. This market discussion includes the acquisition of Cobham Aero Connectivity. We began to include Cobham in this market analysis discussion in the second quarter of fiscal 2021. This market discussion also removes the impact of any divestitures completed in fiscal 2021. In the commercial market, which typically makes up close to 65% of our revenue, we will split our discussion into OEM and aftermarket.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Our total commercial OEM revenue increased approximately 1% in Q4, and declined approximately 25% for full year fiscal 2021 compared with prior year periods. Bookings in the quarter were very strong compared to the same prior year period, and solidly outpaced sales. Sequentially, both Q4 revenue and bookings improved approximately 5% compared to Q3. Although we expect demand for our commercial OEM products to continue to be reduced in the short term, we are encouraged by build rates gradually progressing at the commercial OEMs. Recent commentary from Airbus and Boeing reiterated anticipated rate ramps for their narrow-body platforms in the near future. Hopefully, this will play out as forecasted. Now moving on to our commercial aftermarket business discussion.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Total commercial aftermarket revenue increased by approximately 41% in Q4, and declined approximately 18% for full year fiscal 2021 when compared with prior year periods. Growth in commercial aftermarket revenue was primarily driven by increased demand in our passenger sub-market, although all of our commercial aftermarket sub-markets were up significantly compared to prior year Q4. Sequentially, total commercial aftermarket revenues grew approximately 14%, and bookings grew more than 25%. Commercial aftermarket bookings are up significantly this quarter compared to the same prior year period, and Q4 bookings very solidly outpaced sales. To touch on a few points of consideration, global revenue passenger miles are still low, but have been modestly improving throughout fiscal 2021. IATA recently forecast a 39% decrease in revenue passenger miles in calendar year 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Within IATA's estimate is the expectation that domestic travel will be back to 93% of pre-pandemic levels in calendar year 2022. Though the pace of the recovery remains uncertain, we continue to believe there's pent-up demand for travel. As vaccine distribution expands and travel restrictions are rolled back, passenger demand across the globe will increase. The emergence and spread of COVID variants and other future evolutions may further complicate this picture, but for now, trends remain positive. We see evidence of the pent-up demand through the recovery in domestic travel. Domestic air traffic trended upward throughout fiscal 2021. Airlines also continue to see strength in bookings and strong demand for domestic travel, especially in the U.S., with Europe catching up. China is currently a watch point with its recent drop-off in air traffic.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

The pace of the international air traffic recovery has been slow, and international revenue passenger miles have only slightly recovered. However, vaccinations continue to increase globally, and governments across the world are starting to reduce travel restrictions, which provides for optimism on the international air traffic recovery. Cargo demand has recovered more quickly than commercial travel due to the loss of passenger belly cargo and the pickup in e-commerce. Global cargo volumes continue to surpass pre-COVID levels, and it is generally expected that air freight demand will likely remain robust into 2022. Business jet utilization in certain regions rebounded to pre-pandemic or better levels earlier this year and remains strong. Commentary from business jet OEMs and operators has been encouraging with these higher levels of business jet activity may be here to stay, though time will tell.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Now let me speak about our defense market, which traditionally is at or below 35% of our total revenue. The defense market revenue, which includes both OEM and aftermarket revenues, grew by approximately 2% in Q4, and approximately 5% for full year fiscal 2020 when compared with prior year periods. This was in line with the expected revenue growth expectations we provided for fiscal 2021 of mid-single-digit % range growth. We continue to expect our defense business to expand due to the strength of our current order book. As Kevin mentioned earlier, we expect low single-digit % range growth in fiscal 2022 for our defense market revenues.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Lastly, I'd like to wrap up by stating how extremely pleased I am by our operational performance throughout this fiscal year that continued to be heavily impacted by the pandemic. Our management and their teams remain diligent and focused on our value drivers and will continue to do so in this new fiscal year. We are ready to meet the demand as it returns. With that, I would like to turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Mike Lisman.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Morning, everyone. I'm going to first quickly hit on profitability trends for the business, then address a few additional financial matters for fiscal 2021. Finally, I'll provide some more detail on expectations for fiscal 2022. First, in regard to profitability for fiscal 2021, EBITDA as defined of about $636 million for Q4 was up 28% versus prior year Q4. On a full year basis, EBITDA as defined was about $2.19 billion, down 4% from the prior year. EBITDA as defined margin in the quarter was approximately 49.7%. This represents sequential improvement in our EBITDA as defined margin of almost 400 basis points versus Q3 of 2021. Moving on, a few quick notes on the full 2021 fiscal year.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

I wanna provide one quick M&A-related data point that you might find helpful for your financial models as we head into FY 2022. As you know, we divested several businesses during 2021, all of which were sold out of continuing operations. As a result of the accounting treatment applied, roughly $130 million of revenue and $25 million-$30 million of EBITDA as defined from these divested operating units remains in our FY 2021 results. This revenue and EBITDA will obviously not carry over into FY 2022. On cash and liquidity, we ended the year with approximately $4.8 billion of cash on the balance sheet, and our net debt to EBITDA ratio was 7x. In the early days of October, we repaid the $200 million revolver drawdown that we made at the onset of COVID back in April of 2020.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

This was done out of an abundance of caution at the time, and we don't need the cash, so we've repaid it. Pro forma for the revolver paydown, our cash balance is $4.6 billion. Next on the FY 2022 expectations. We aren't giving full guidance, as Kevin mentioned, but we are providing guidance on select financial metrics, including the following. Interest expense is expected to be about $1.08 billion in FY 2022. On taxes, our fiscal 2022 GAAP and cash rates are anticipated to be in the range of 21%-24%, and the adjusted tax rate will be a few points higher and in the range of 26%-28%.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

On the share count, we expect our weighted average shares outstanding will increase by about 800,000 shares to 59.2 million in FY 2022, and that assumes no buybacks occur during the fiscal year. Similar to prior years, the increase in shares outstanding is due to employee stock options that vested at the end of our FY 2021. With regard to liquidity, we expect to continue running free cash flow positive throughout FY 2022. As we traditionally define our free cash flow from operations at TransDigm, which as a reminder is our EBITDA as defined, less debt interest payments, less CapEx, less cash taxes, we expect this metric to be in the $1 billion area, maybe a little better in fiscal 2022.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Assuming no M&A, no dividends or share repurchases, and no additional debt capital markets activities, this free cash flow generation, together with a higher EBITDA figure, should the COVID rebound continue, will likely reduce our net debt to EBITDA ratio to something more like 6x at the end of fiscal 2022 versus the current 7x level. Finally, one last note on the DoD Inspector General audit. As we mentioned previously, we've been actively engaged with the IG office with some ebbs and flows, and this engagement is now complete. In our best assessment, and based upon what we saw, this audit appeared to be similar in scope to prior audits. While it's difficult to know exactly when a final report will be issued publicly, we expect that this could happen any day now, very likely during the first quarter of our fiscal 2022.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

With that, I'll turn it back to the operator to kick off the Q&A.

Operator

Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star then one. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queues, press the pound key. Our first question comes from the line of Noah Poponak from Goldman Sachs. Your question please.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Hi, good morning, everybody.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Morning, Noah.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Morning.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Could you spend a little bit more time on the 47% EBITDA as defined margin target for next year? You know, how do we bridge from the 49.7% exit rate of this year? I know there's a little bit of seasonality, but if I look at all the data historically, it's not that seasonal, and it looks like you'll be mixing down based on your end market growth rate comments.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

You know, it's possible, Noah, that we could mix up. It's possible that we're being conservative. I think there was some good news that happened in Q4 in terms of market mix and our performance. You know, we're trying to be reasonable and transparent in what we see. There's a lot of unknowns that have to come to pass in terms of the commercial aftermarket bookings for this to all play out. That's the angle we took and what we rolled up from our teams and think that it makes sense for us right now. If it's conservative, that'll be great. We would love to beat that.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Okay. Sensible. Mike, on the cash flow inputs for next year, you had the working capital headwind this year. Maybe just help us out with how that changes next year. CapEx, that number as a percentage of revenue is fairly high relative to where you've been historically. What's behind that?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Sure. First on the working capital, you'll see when we publish the 10-K later today, I don't think you have the full cash flow detail yet, but AR did tick up a bit this quarter. About $100 million went back into accounts receivable. We knew that was gonna happen. As a reminder, you know, from peak to trough, about $400 million came out of accounts receivable during COVID. That's gonna have to go in as we go back in, as we go through the rebound here. It did tick up this year over the past couple quarters. As you know, this last quarter was $100 million. That's gonna continue into FY 2022.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Ultimately, how much goes back into AR and the pace at which that happens depends on the pace of the recovery, but we do expect it to be a use of cash on the order of at least $100 million during our FY 2022, potentially more. That'd be a good problem to have, by the way. I mean, if the commercial markets rebound and we have to invest more in AR, we're happy to do that. We certainly have the cash. Sorry, Noah, your second question was on CapEx, I think.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

CapEx, yes.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

We put out a range of 135-155 today. It is slightly higher on a percentage basis. It's tied to some one-time projects at some of our op units. As you know, our first use of cash is to go and deploy it into our own businesses to help them grow, and we're just doing some of that with some large one-time projects at select op units.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Stallard from Vertical Research. Your question, please.

Robert Stallard
Robert Stallard
Partner at Vertical Research

Yeah. Thanks so much, and good morning.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Good morning.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Morning. Morning.

Robert Stallard
Robert Stallard
Partner at Vertical Research

Kevin, first question. Have you seen any supply chain issues or labor issues this quarter?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Jorge, you wanna take that one?

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Sure. We've started to see some of the pushing out of lead times from the supply chain, primarily focused on electronic components. It's been spotty, nothing too significant at this point, but in all likelihood, this will get worse before it gets better.

Robert Stallard
Robert Stallard
Partner at Vertical Research

Just a quick follow-up on that maybe. As you look at how this could pan out in 2022, have you built some sort of contingency for these issues into that EBITDA margin guidance?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

I don't think we have, but this is part of the, I guess, conservatism. You know, we try to be conservative as we forecast going forward. We haven't specifically allotted anything to supply chain disruption, but I think it is part of our belief that this could be an issue for us as we go forward, as Jorge mentioned, specifically on electronic components and those types of parts. We're seeing some supply difficulty. You know, in terms of inflationary pressures, I think we'd all agree that we will look to pass those along as we always have. We don't eat inflation in that regard.

Robert Stallard
Robert Stallard
Partner at Vertical Research

Okay. That's great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Myles Walton from UBS. Your question, please.

Myles Walton
Myles Walton
Managing Director at UBS

Thanks. Maybe just a margin question again for a second. Mike, I think you mentioned the divestiture still in the 2021 guidance that you'd be anniversarying in 2022. It looks like that alone is 70 basis points of assistance on EBITDA margins. I mean, not to beat a dead horse here, but it sounds like there's healthy amount of conservatism in the 47% unless you wanna offer-

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Well, on the margin guide, remember, we also bought Cobham too, which kind of counteracts the divestitures the other way and cancels it out.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

I think that kind of negates some of the impact that you mentioned and kind of levels it.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. I think I said it was, what, a half a percent drag to it?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Yeah.

Myles Walton
Myles Walton
Managing Director at UBS

Now, was that a half percent for the quarter or for the year? Just, and what was it in the quarter?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

That's into FY 2022 versus what it would've been had we not bought the Cobham Aero Connectivity business.

Myles Walton
Myles Walton
Managing Director at UBS

Got it. What was it in the quarter?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

On the quarter, I think it was close to 1%.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Yeah.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Just below 1%, a couple tens below.

Myles Walton
Myles Walton
Managing Director at UBS

Okay. Perfect. Within the aftermarket growth rate range, the 20%-30%, Kevin, is there, you know, a figure of merit that you're using to ballpark that? Is that a sequential growth that's underlying? Is that a traffic growth? Any point of light?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Well, I think it's traffic growth related. I think we're counting on that largely being, you know, U.S., Europe related. We'll have to see how it unpacks around the globe. As you guys all know, we don't have geographical information along those lines. You know, we will continue to monitor this closely. If the traffic patterns, you know, come along like we believe they might, then yeah, the 20%-30% planning, and I emphasize planning. It's difficult to, you know, issue that as guidance when, as you know, aftermarket bookings tend to be book and ship. You don't have as much visibility. This is for planning purposes. You know, every business will have a slightly different plan along those lines.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

We tried to give you a roll-up of the range, that will be based, I think, largely on takeoff and landing activity.

Myles Walton
Myles Walton
Managing Director at UBS

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes to the line of Ken Herbert from RBC. Your question, please.

Ken Herbert
Ken Herbert
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Yeah. Hi. Good morning.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Good morning, Ken.

Ken Herbert
Ken Herbert
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

I wanted to follow up, Kevin, on the discussion on the commercial aftermarket. I know your sequential growth has been a little lumpy over the last three quarters, but considering your comment on sort of book and ship and the bookings pace, how should we think about the sequential growth here into the fiscal first quarter of 2022?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Well, I think we're concerned about the first quarter, only, I guess concerned too strong of a word. You know, we always see a normal dip in, you know, sequential, from Q4 to Q1, given the less days. I think we're always concerned that the market doesn't, you know, accurately predict that. You know, to give you some, you know, reason to, you know, believe in what we're saying, you know, the bookings came out, for Q4 very strong. You know, we booked ahead of shipments. That's encouraging for us, clearly, and means that we're setting ourselves up, for a strong position into 2022. Q1 is always a little bit weaker because of seasonal performance.

Ken Herbert
Ken Herbert
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Okay, that's helpful. Again, as we think about the up, call it, 25% for your planning purposes for the aftermarket for the year, what are your assumptions on travel, say, and takeoffs and landings in Asia or in international markets? I know you don't have great visibility internationally, but are you anticipating a significant recovery in these numbers in international? I'm just trying to get at some of the puts and takes in that 20%-30% planning range.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Well, you've really zeroed in on why we struggle to give guidance on these numbers because I don't have that visibility. I don't understand where it's gonna come from. This comes as a roll-up from all of our teams who tell us what they think they see happening in the marketplace based on what the customers are telling them. It's not so easy for me to predict by region, by platform. We don't, and that's why I'm giving you some, you know, planning guidance that what we're planning on should happen, but how it actually gets to us, we don't, it's not so clear where the orders are and where the shipments are, and therefore, what traffic needs to look like. You know, is the recovery in China, does that happen? All...

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

What we're counting on is a, you know, consistent, steady recovery like what we've seen, and that should give us these kinds of aftermarket improvement numbers.

Ken Herbert
Ken Herbert
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Great. Well, thank you very much.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kristine Liwag from Morgan Stanley. Your question, please.

Kristine Liwag
Kristine Liwag
Head of Aerospace and Defense Equities Research at Morgan Stanley

Hey, good morning, guys.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Good morning.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Good morning.

Kristine Liwag
Kristine Liwag
Head of Aerospace and Defense Equities Research at Morgan Stanley

Kevin, Mike, the business was free cash flow positive even at the depths of COVID. Considering the defensibility of the business model, how are you thinking about maximum leverage that the balance sheet can support versus what you would have thought pre-COVID? Can you discuss your appetite for large versus small deals?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Sure. On leverage, we don't anticipate any kind of change. If you went back to the pre-COVID two-year period and averaged the quarterly net debt to EBITDA levels, you get about 6.0x almost exactly. We're comfortable operating at that level. Some of the, you know, in debt incurrence tests and other things in our credit agreement are, you know, based off operating at that level, and we're comfortable with it. If anything, this pandemic, as you said, has kind of proven that the business is very durable from a free cash flow standpoint and could probably sustain more leverage than the historical level we've run it at. But we do wanna keep some firepower for M&A at all times, including large deals. Moving on to the second part of your question, large deals.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

As Kevin mentioned, we're, you know, more active now on the M&A side at the small to midsize range. There are also obviously some large potential transactions that we track from time to time, both on the strategic side, but then also big divestitures that could maybe come out of some of the peers of ours in the aerospace industry. We're always looking and always on the hunt, as you know, whether it's large or small. We're targeting M&A of all sizes from kind of the really low TEV range below $100 million, up to $2 billion.

Kristine Liwag
Kristine Liwag
Head of Aerospace and Defense Equities Research at Morgan Stanley

I see. If I could do a follow-up, I mean, looking at the Esterline deal, you found some jewels in there, and you also divested some businesses that may not have necessarily fit the TransDigm model. When you think about the opportunities for large deals, what kind of threshold are you looking at in terms of what you wanna keep versus what you wanna divest in terms of your appetite for pursuing some of these large deals that may not be, you know, 100% TransDigm-y?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Yeah, it's hard to put an exact percentage on something like that. Ultimately, it depends on the on-sale risk, right? If there was something where it was maybe 50-50, and you had someone who wanted to buy the other, you know, 50%, that's a different situation than, you know, Esterline, where we sold roughly a quarter of it. Hard to answer that question, but, you know, obviously, the Esterline transaction proved to us that we can go and buy something that's not a 100% fit the day we own it, but then execute on M&A in the year or two post-deal close to shape it down to the portfolio that we wanna own, you know, forever and long term. We do look at M&A situations like that going forward.

Kristine Liwag
Kristine Liwag
Head of Aerospace and Defense Equities Research at Morgan Stanley

Thanks for the color.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Strauss from Barclays. Your question please. Hello? David? Phone on mute.

David Strauss
David Strauss
Managing Director at Barclays

Sorry about that. Can you hear me now?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yes. Yes.

David Strauss
David Strauss
Managing Director at Barclays

Okay, great. Thanks. Kevin, appreciate the color there on Meggitt. Just wanted to ask you about

David Strauss
David Strauss
Managing Director at Barclays

You know, the fact that you were willing to entertain the idea of, you know, potentially getting involved in Meggitt, given what appears to be pretty, you know, pretty high valuations, what does that say about kind of the pipeline, the ability to find large aero deals for you guys from here?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Well, at the end of the day, the market says what a property is worth, and it's up to us to follow what the market says we have to pay. We are looking for, you know, highly engineered proprietary aerospace products that have aftermarket access. The size of those businesses doesn't matter as much as we want to identify those and get them into the fold. We believe that we can invest in those businesses and make them stronger. We're not looking for bigger and bigger deals. You know, our target is to acquire, you know, $50 million-$100 million a year. That's what works in our model and allows us to keep generating the kinds of value returns that we do. We're not getting overly fixated on doing a large deal.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

When they come along, we certainly look at them, we evaluate them. You know, in the ones that we've proceeded with, I think we've done pretty well. The market looks. It's definitely picking up in activity. You know, it's always hard to predict when a close will happen, but you know, we're seeing, you know, some interesting activity right now, and it's encouraging.

David Strauss
David Strauss
Managing Director at Barclays

Okay, thanks for that. You know, as a follow-up, can you talk about where you are today from a headcount perspective? How much do you think you've taken out kind of in structural costs through this, and where do you think you ultimately need to take headcount back to, you know, kind of assuming we get back to pre-pandemic levels for your business in, you know, call it 2023?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. I don't have the numbers in front of me. Jorge can comment on that. I think we are very disciplined in our approach to adding back. You know, that is one of the hallmarks of our operations discipline. Jorge, do you wanna expand on that?

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. I would add, you know, the teams have done a lot of heavy lifting in terms of restructuring and productivity focus the last 12 months. We're pretty comfortable with the resource level that we currently have. I think as most of you know, as the commercial aftermarket rebounds, that's not as heavy in terms of labor requirements or resource requirements. You know, I think I'm pretty comfortable of where the teams are at. They've done a great job, and now we just need the market to recover here.

David Strauss
David Strauss
Managing Director at Barclays

All right. Thanks very much.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Operator?

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star then one. Our next question comes from the line of Seth Seifman from JPMorgan. Your question please.

Seth Seifman
Seth Seifman
Executive Director at JPMorgan

Hey, thanks very much. Good morning.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Good morning.

Seth Seifman
Seth Seifman
Executive Director at JPMorgan

I'm just wondering, in the OE end market, you know, heard the comment about the expectations for, you know, for this coming year and kind of certainly expect the growth to pick up there. Just in terms of thinking about the phasing of growth at TransDigm and, you know, how that relates to where we are in the build cycle, you know, we've started to see some at some other companies, some OE growth kind of happening already as Boeing and Airbus have picked up, especially on the narrow-body rates kind of ahead of that growth.

Seth Seifman
Seth Seifman
Executive Director at JPMorgan

Certainly on kind of the you know on the business jet side and you know it looked like you guys were kind of low single digit or flattish on both of those guys both sides of that. How do you think about the you know the trajectory there and how you're going to sort of relate to the progress in build rates?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. In general, we found that the OEMs and the tier ones were a little bit slow to respond in midyear 2020 as the pandemic was ramping up. We believe there's some natural inventory destocking continuing to go on. You know, the orders are starting to come in. As I mentioned, the bookings were up in the commercial OE in Q4, so that's a positive indicator. You know, I don't have the details in terms of how it lays in across fiscal year 2022, but we don't think there's any significant issue there. It's just the timing and the lag of the OEM shutting off the valve, if you will, on the supply in 2020 and now as they continue to ramp up in production.

Seth Seifman
Seth Seifman
Executive Director at JPMorgan

Great. Thanks. Then just as a quick follow-up in the defense end market, I think, you know, last year you guys ended up toward the higher end of the initial range that you gave. Is there anything to be aware of for this year that might determine either on the plus side or the minus side where things end up in defense?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

No. I think the guidance that we provided is reasonable. As you guys might know and remember, the defense markets in general have been very strong over the past two to three years. They can be lumpy in nature in terms of the bookings, you know, so I think the guidance that we're providing is within a reasonable range.

Seth Seifman
Seth Seifman
Executive Director at JPMorgan

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pete Osterland from Truist Securities. Your question please.

Pete Osterland
Pete Osterland
Vice President of Equity Research at Truist Securities

Hey, good morning. This is Pete from Michael Ciarmoli. Thanks for taking our questions. First, I had a question on the aftermarket. Have there been any product categories that have been particularly strong or weak? Just wondering what you've been seeing on airline spending priorities, and then also what you're seeing in the pricing environment in aftermarket.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. I think in general, you know, our passenger sub-market, which is our largest sub-market, has been strong, as well as the cargo, as I noted in Q4 and sequentially ramped up across 2021. I don't think we have any data that would point it to a specific type of product or application. You know, generally, the airlines are starting to increase their flight schedules, which is positive, and they're ordering spares based on needs.

Pete Osterland
Pete Osterland
Vice President of Equity Research at Truist Securities

All right. Thank you. Just to follow up on financial guidance, just wondering, what are the key improvements or catalysts that you might be looking for in the coming periods in the overall market, if you'd have the confidence and the visibility to provide full financial guidance?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

I think it's market recovery, you know, international markets, people flying again on an international scale and continued domestic travel. We know that business travel isn't a huge percentage of overall flights, but still very important to airlines in how they gear up their fleets and capacitize. This is what we'd be looking at, is, you know, acceptance and continued international flight activity, more domestic recovery in other pockets around the world to look more similar to where the U.S. is, which is very close within, you know, 10%-20% of what it was pre-COVID. I think those are the things we're looking at, and there's still a lot of unknowns. You see the, you know, China's traffic activity bounce around quite a bit. Every couple of months, they're shutting down and then coming back.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

These are the things that don't give us the confidence to give guidance, but we know that the market continues to improve and move forward at a steady rate. Does that answer your question?

Pete Osterland
Pete Osterland
Vice President of Equity Research at Truist Securities

Yes, it does. Thank you for taking the question.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sheila Kahyaoglu from Jefferies. Your question please.

Sheila Kahyaoglu
Sheila Kahyaoglu
Managing Director at Jefferies

Thanks. Good morning, guys, and thanks for the time. Maybe I'll start off on, you know, EBITDA profitability going forward, just in the absence of any major M&A and pretty good performance in the quarter. You know, how do we think about medium-term EBITDA profitability levels? Is 50% the new level? If you could just comment on expectations for free cash flow conversion.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

I don't think we wanna go and provide any long-term guidance. I think, you know, generally just from our analyst day, if we execute on the value drivers, EBITDA margins at TransDigm should improve by about one percentage point per year. As we come out of COVID, there's a potential that that gets kind of mixed up a bit and maybe you do better if you mix more towards commercial aftermarket. Over a long span of several years, it should continue to improve for the base business, absent M&A, by about a percentage point per year.

Sheila Kahyaoglu
Sheila Kahyaoglu
Managing Director at Jefferies

Okay, cool. Then, I wanted to follow up on a defense question earlier. You mentioned the IG report came to a close, which is a big accomplishment. Was there any impact to defense during that time? Then as your peers have had softer defense volumes, are there certain areas that you're watching, just as caution areas in defense?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

I think there's a potential for some disruption on the IG side as the report comes out, just with, you know, the government purchasing maybe slowing down a little bit. We did see some of that in the past. Remember of the defense bucket, the direct to government, isn't all that significant, right? We also sell more product internationally into tier one, so it doesn't comprise all of that bucket. We do potentially expect some slowdown as the report comes out here.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah, it's possible. We anticipate a similar process to or similar conclusions to last time. We'll see, as we're still in the dark on the report and some of its details. We've had a very cooperative work process going on with the IG and the DoD, and I think we're in a good place, but we're anxious to get the report issued and move on with business.

Sheila Kahyaoglu
Sheila Kahyaoglu
Managing Director at Jefferies

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Akers from Wells Fargo. Your question please.

Matthew Akers
Matthew Akers
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Yeah. Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Good morning.

Matthew Akers
Matthew Akers
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

On the commercial aftermarket, do you think that there's still sort of a pent-up demand there for maintenance? Like, if airlines had sort of deferred stuff during COVID and now, you know, we've got to catch up, or is that sort of behind us at this point?

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. I mean, I think there's been speculation out there in terms of the airlines trying to prioritize certain maintenance activities. You know, it's hard for us to know. We don't get visibility on the inventory levels at the airlines. I think just the general improvement in the marketplace.

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

More planes flying have led to some of the improvements we've seen across, you know, the whole fiscal year 2021. As Kevin and Mike noted, we again expect some sequential improvement from quarter to quarter as we go through fiscal year 2022.

Matthew Akers
Matthew Akers
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Got it. Okay. I mean, does the higher fuel prices, I mean, are your customers talking about that as they, you know, they sort of have this large parked fleet, and as they decide if, you know, whether they wanna keep flying those, is that higher fuel price factor in that decision that you've heard, or has that not really come up?

Jorge Valladares
Jorge Valladares
COO at TransDigm Group

I don't think we've heard anything specific to decisions the airlines might be making regarding the higher fuel costs. I haven't heard anything from our teams.

Matthew Akers
Matthew Akers
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Got it. Okay, thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of a follow-up from Noah Poponak from Goldman Sachs. Your question please.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Kevin, your comment that we should not be looking for share repurchase or special dividend in the next quarter. Can we interpret that to mean you see a reasonable likelihood of acquisition activity in that period of time? If that doesn't play out, you know, how quickly do you start to consider share repurchase or special dividend?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Well, we don't like spec.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Yeah.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

We can't speculate on when acquisitions will happen. You know, we always go back to what I said earlier in the uses of capital, you know, fund your own internal investment and pay back, you know, look for acquisitions and then, of course, you know, look to get that cash back. We will look to do that, of course, in the appropriate process that we always go through. We can't speculate on when acquisitions might come along or not. We just know that right now from paying out a dividend or buying back shares, we're still in a little bit of a wait until, you know, next quarter.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Okay.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Does that make sense?

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Yeah, yeah. I just wasn't sure how specific that was versus taking it quarter by quarter.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. I think, next quarter is a decision point for us.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Okay. Makes sense. The commentary on bookings ahead of shipments by end market. Do you happen to have the numbers on, you know, exactly where the book-to-bill is by end market in the quarter and year?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

No, I don't have the exact numbers.

Noah Poponak
Noah Poponak
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Okay, no problem. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes to the line of Gautam Khanna from Cowen and Company. Your question please.

Gautam Khanna
Gautam Khanna
Analyst at Cowen and Company

Hey. Yes, thank you. Just to follow up on a couple questions. Noah's last one. On the book-to-bill, in the aftermarket, it looks like for three quarters you've had bookings ahead of shipments. I have two questions related to that. One, are all shipments at some point booked? Therefore, the book-to-bill is actually a relevant metric. Second, what's going on there? It looks like, you know, you've been creating backlog. I'm just curious, like, is that what's happening? You're seeing orders for delivery, customers want the product, but not immediately. Is that like, is there a duration stretch to the backlog that you're seeing in the aftermarket? That's my first question.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

I think, you know, aftermarket orders for more immediate shipments, but that doesn't mean they're all due tomorrow. There is still a little bit of a range over when these things are due. That's why it bleeds over quarter to quarter. In general, I think we're optimistic because we see bookings continue to improve, and that means growth in aftermarket as we go forward and why we're planning on 20%-30% possible aftermarket growth.

Gautam Khanna
Gautam Khanna
Analyst at Cowen and Company

Fair enough. Just to that point, you're actually probably seeing some visibility beyond the December quarter in terms of shipments at this point in the aftermarket. Is that unusual? You know, to see out-

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah, I think that's a fair comment. I don't think it's unusual, you know, in a steady state. We have airlines and distribution partners that will book some near term, and they'll also give us and the team some visibility on mid and longer term needs.

Gautam Khanna
Gautam Khanna
Analyst at Cowen and Company

Okay. Every shipment ultimately had a booking, correct?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yes, that is correct.

Gautam Khanna
Gautam Khanna
Analyst at Cowen and Company

Okay. Okay, fair enough. Just wanna make sure on the nomenclature. The other thing, just to follow up on the earlier questions, supply chain, did it actually impede your ability to deliver some sales? Did you leave some sales on the table? Are there delinquencies? And if so, can you quantify how much of a catch-up opportunity that might be in fiscal 2022?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah. I would say there was nothing material in terms of what was left at the dock, if you will. You know, there's some noise here and there at a couple of operating units. I don't think it provides a big tailwind as we go into FY 2022.

Gautam Khanna
Gautam Khanna
Analyst at Cowen and Company

Okay. Last one, I'm sorry. I think, Jorge, you may have mentioned debt ending next year at a 60, you know, roughly at 6x net debt to EBITDA with $1 billion of free cash. The math is somewhere around 2.4-ish billion of adjusted EBITDA on that basis. Is that what you were trying to convey or?

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Are we just talking round numbers there?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

No, we're not giving guidance on the denominator there.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Okay.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

We're simply trying to give you a rough sense for the deleveraging by about a turn per year. If you're trying to dial in.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yep.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

back into the EBITDA guide or something. Don't do it, 'cause you're not gonna get it the right stat.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

You know, the way we look at this is, when the orders come in, deliver them quicker and more reliably than anyone, and we will generate the returns and value generation we're used to, you're used to. There's no company you can count on to do that more reliably than us. Yeah, we're just trying to communicate that there's always puts and takes and lumps in this business.

Gautam Khanna
Gautam Khanna
Analyst at Cowen and Company

I appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes to the line of Hunter Keay from Wolfe Research. Your question please.

Hunter Keay
Hunter Keay
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Hey, thanks. Just a couple quick ones for you, Mike. First one is, how much are you budgeting internally for TransDigm business travel spend next year relative to pre-COVID?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

We're stepping up a little bit, but not quite to pre-COVID levels. I don't have the exact stats in front of me. It's not quite back to 2019 levels, but it's more than 2020. For the most part, all of our folks here are back to traveling, whether it's M&A people pounding the pavement looking for deals or internal audit folks going out to op units to do their work. We're not holding back at all here. It's pretty much full go where we'd typically be, but it's slightly reduced headcount levels.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah, business as usual, but you know, some of our customers maybe aren't yet receiving us.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Yeah.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Certainly within the company, we are back to normal, yeah.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Yeah.

Hunter Keay
Hunter Keay
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Okay. All right, thanks. You mentioned a couple projects on the CapEx line driving a little bit of higher spend. What are they? Or what business lines? Is this defense? Is this, you know, interiors? Is it around freight? I mean, well, I'm just not gonna give too much away, but what are the nature of these projects? Thanks.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Yeah, I mean, generally, we don't give that kind of detail. I could say, you know, as we continued to adjust our resource levels, you know, that puts additional pressures on increasing production rates, so we've got a few teams investing in new technologies for automation projects, and then a handful of other projects across the ranch.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

But the-

Hunter Keay
Hunter Keay
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Okay.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

The lion's share of this is productivity and new business related.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Correct.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

It is not, you know, infrastructure, nice-to-haves kind of stuff. We're investing for payback and return. That at the end of the day is the most important part of what we evaluate is what returns are we expecting as we invest a little more or less? We have to make sure we're still capturing those returns.

Hunter Keay
Hunter Keay
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Elizabeth Grenfell from Bank of America. Your question please.

Elizabeth Grenfell
Elizabeth Grenfell
Research Analyst at Bank of America

Hi. Good morning.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Good morning.

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

Morning.

Elizabeth Grenfell
Elizabeth Grenfell
Research Analyst at Bank of America

Good morning. As we think about your comments and your expectations for aftermarket next year, how are you thinking about retirements with regards to that expectation?

Mike Lisman
Mike Lisman
CFO at TransDigm Group

As the teams put together their individual plans, you know, we're not projecting a significant impact as a result of retirements in 2022.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

Yeah, as you know, retirements have been very slow, and I think that.

Kevin Stein
Kevin Stein
President and CEO at TransDigm Group

It has something to do with the stability of OEM supply and, you know, a ramp-up in demand that doesn't allow retirements. You know, yeah. I think that answers the question.

Elizabeth Grenfell
Elizabeth Grenfell
Research Analyst at Bank of America

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude the question-and-answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Jaimie Stemen for any further remarks.

Jaimie Stemen
Jaimie Stemen
Director of Investor Relations at TransDigm Group

Thank you all for joining us today. This concludes today's call. We appreciate your time. Have a good day.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.

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