Dana Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 28, 2023

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Dana Incorporated Second Quarter 2023 Financial Webcast and Conference Call. My name is Josh, and I will be your conference facilitator. Please be advised that our meeting today, both the speakers' remarks and Q and A session will be recorded for replay services. For those participants who would like to access the call from the webcast, please reference the URL on our website and sign in as a guest. There will be a question and answer period after the speakers' remarks, and we will take questions from the telephone only.

Operator

To ensure that everyone has an opportunity to participate in today's Q and A, we ask that callers limit themselves to one question at a time. If you would like to ask some additional questions, please return to the queue. At this time, I would like to begin the presentation I'm turning the call over to Dana's Senior Director of Investor Relations and Strategic Planning, Greg Barber. Please go ahead, Mr. Barber.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Josh, and good morning, everyone on the call. Thank you for joining us today for our Q2 2023 earnings call. You'll find this morning's press release and presentation are now posted on our investor website. Today's call is being recorded and supporting materials are the property of Dana Incorporated. They may not be recorded, copied or rebroadcast without our written consent.

Speaker 1

Allow me to remind you that today's presentation includes forward looking statements about our expectations for Dana's future performance. Actual results could differ from those suggested by our comments today. Additional information about the factors that could affect future results are summarized in our Safe Harbor statement found in our public filings, including our reports with the SEC. On the call this morning are Jim Kamciscus, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Timothy Krause, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Jim.

Speaker 1

Jim?

Speaker 2

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Please turn with me to Page 4, where I will Our highlights for the Q2 of 2023. Starting on the left side, we're pleased to report that Dana achieved record second quarter sales of $2,700,000,000 a $162,000,000 increase over the same period last year, driven by continued strong customer demand, The roll on of our new business backlog across all of our end markets and our ongoing cost recovery efforts. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $243,000,000 up $81,000,000 or 50% over the Q2 of last year, driven by our strong operational execution and improving customer schedules. Free cash flow was $134,000,000 which is a good second quarter performance driven by higher profit and our working capital efficiency.

Speaker 2

Lastly, for our results, Adjusted earnings per share for the year were $0.37 an improvement of $0.29 per share. Dana remains on track and extremely focused on the execution of our company wide transformation that has securely positioned us to be a leading supplier to the world's most prolific ICE and 0 admissions vehicle manufacturers. While this ongoing transformation has not been easy in light of the challenges that continued To impact the mobility industry between 2020 2022, it was necessary to completely reposition the company for long term profitable growth as the industry transitions to a 0 admissions world. Dana recognized that This industry transitioned early on and took measures actions to enhance our product portfolio and ensure that we are an with the goal of being a leading energy source agnostic mobility supplier with the capability to design, engineer and manufacture Fully electric powertrains in house across all mobility markets. That is why I'm very proud of how the Dana team has continued to relentlessly drive organization to ensure that we can meet whatever needs our customers have in this quickly changing market.

Speaker 2

Moving to the right side of the slide, I will be highlighting the following key items today as we reach the midpoint of the year. First is an update on the current operating environment and outlook for the remainder of the year. While we continue to navigate numerous challenges, including inflationary pressures, Customer demand volatility, supply chain disruptions and currency fluctuations, market conditions have begun to stabilize and we expect them to continue improving through the back half of the year. I will also give you a brief update on a few of the key high volume new business launches that have just concluded or are now underway and gradually accelerating cereal production volumes. Moving to the lower level, we are excited to report that Dana continues to win new electrification business partnering with the world's largest OEMs for some of the most marquee programs in our industry.

Speaker 2

Lastly, we will highlight another example of how Dana is intentionally leveraging our Expertise to develop the most advanced e Propulsion systems, in this case, e transmissions across all three mobility markets. Please turn with me to Page 5, where I'll walk you through an update on our operating environment. As we shared with you last quarter, we are anticipating an overall improved operating environment as we go through the second half of twenty twenty three. Beginning with commodity costs and currency impacts on the left side of the slide, we continue to see steel prices moderating compared with 2022. And though we expect commodities to remain a tailwind for the rest of the year, prices have not fallen quite as fast as we had previously expected.

Speaker 2

Commodity recoveries continue, but are returning to a more normal pace as base material prices fall. And finally, for this section, foreign currencies as translated to U. S. Dollars were a headwind in the 2nd quarter, but we expect that will moderate in the back half as the relative strength of the dollar weakens. Moving to the center of the slide, cost inflation continues to be an issue as many input costs remain high, including labor and European Energy.

Speaker 2

Pricing actions are muting the impact of inflation, but will not completely offset it in the second half. There has been a sequential improvement starting late in the second quarter and customer production volatility and customers are indicating that their supply chains are improving, which should help us to reduce production volatility and schedule disruptions through the rest of the year. Moving to the right of the page, demand across all end markets remain strong as vehicle manufacturers are working to restock inventory. Like everyone in the industry, we continue to monitor the possibility of an OEM labor disruption. With approximately 120 active program launches this year, including a great balance of EV and ICE programs spanning all of our markets Globally, the preparation and efforts our team members committed to over the prior years have paid off as all of our launches continue to progress exceptionally well.

Speaker 2

We are successfully through the launch of the Ford Super Duty and are currently ramping up the GM Altium and beginning the launch of the new Jeep Wrangler program. We also expect higher EV volumes to benefit battery and power electronics cooling product Sales in the second half of the year primarily impacting our Power Technologies segment. As we move into the back half of twenty twenty three, We expect to see the benefits of increasing production volatility somewhat offset by higher net inflation. Let's now turn to Page 6, where I'm excited to share with you another new and transformative EV program with a major OEM. Dana has been at the forefront of developing and manufacturing electrified vehicle powertrains for some of the world's most recognized brands across the entire mobility market.

Speaker 2

Previously, we had shared with you how electrification adoption is rapidly accelerating in the light vehicle segment and that there are a number of new programs that Dana is working on with major customers. Today, I'm pleased to announce that Dana has been selected as the electrification supply partner for an all new high volume electric vehicle program with a major North America OEM. While I'm not able to name the customer or the vehicle yet, we will be supplying our Rigid Beam E Axles for a highly anticipated light and medium duty truck program. The first models are slated for production in the next few years and will include Dana's designed and manufactured Rigid E Beam that will include Dana's electrodynamics and e thermal management components. Consistent with our commercial vehicle and off highway customers, our light vehicle customers recognize and are turning to Dana Complete in house e Propulsion capabilities, including motors, inverters, e Thermal, software, controllers and of course mechanical capabilities to differentiate their vehicles for the future.

Speaker 2

It is another great example of how the transformation to electrification is providing Dana an opportunity to supply 3 times the vehicle content versus traditional ICE drivelines on programs big and small. Stay tuned and we'll be able to provide you more details about this major EV program award in the coming months. Please turn to Slide 7, where I will talk about how Dana is successfully leveraging our class leading e transmission capabilities across all three of our end markets in multiple applications. If you recall, I shared that Dana would have a prominent presence at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo known as ACT Expo or ACT, which features some of the world's leading OEMs and commercial transportation technology providers showcasing the latest products and solutions designed to decarbonize transportation and pave the road to a zero admission future.

Speaker 1

The show was

Speaker 2

a huge success with countless Industry leaders taking part. During the week, Dana announced the expansion of our Spicer Electrified e Powertrain offerings to include a family of e transmissions for a wide variety of medium duty electric vehicle applications. Launching on a global electric vehicle platform in early 2024, Dana Spicer Electrified 06E transmission Optimized operating range and vehicle performance were applications ideally suited to a central drive e Propulsion system with a conventional axle and driveshaft layout. It is significant step towards further electrifying the medium duty commercial vehicle market. Dana's superior engineering and technical expertise in EV and hybrid transmissions provide us with the inherent capability leveraging our proven expertise across all the markets that we serve.

Speaker 2

If you recall last quarter, I shared how our e transmission capabilities are driving some of the world's most notable and advanced high performance vehicles such as Aston Martin, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren. In addition to the supercars and commercial vehicles, our ePowerShift technology is translating to our off highway market as well where we are already leveraging it across numerous vehicle types, including wheel loaders and rough terrain trains in construction, large lift trucks, Empty container handlers, reach stackers, internal tractors and material handling, load haul dumpers and underground mining and forwarders in forestry. As the markets continue to evolve, we are in a leading position to provide solutions that fit our customers' unique needs, whether it's for light vehicle, off highway or commercial vehicle applications. Thank you for your time today. Now I'd like to turn it over to Tim, who will walk you through the financials.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jim, and good morning. Please turn to slide 9 for a look at Dana's Q2 2023 results. Sales were $2,750,000,000 $162,000,000 increase over last year, primarily driven by strong demand in our driveline segments and recoveries of cost inflation. Adjusted EBITDA was $243,000,000 for a margin of 8.8 percent. That is $181,000,000 higher and a 2 50 basis points increase over last year.

Speaker 2

While we still experienced Some lingering customer driven production inefficiencies, our profit improvement was driven by lower net manufacturing costs, strong operational execution and the timing of EV investments. The net income attributable to Dana was $30,000,000 compared with $8,000,000 last year driven by higher operating income. Diluted adjusted earnings per share was $0.37 a $0.29 improvement over the Q2 of last year. Lastly, free cash flow was $134,000,000 down $33,000,000 from last year, driven primarily by higher capital spending. Please turn with me now to Slide 10 for a closer look the drivers of sales and profit change for the Q2 of 2023.

Speaker 2

Beginning on the left, traditional organic sales growth of 137,000,000 was driven by higher demand, improved pricing, recoveries as well as product and market mix. Adjusted EBITDA on higher sales was $45,000,000 which improved margin by 130 basis points. Cost inflation was offset by customer recoveries in the quarter And improved operational execution muted cost headwinds from inefficiencies driven by volatile customer production, which While lessening in intensity was still an issue early in the second quarter, primarily in our light vehicle segment. Next, EV organic sales were $36,000,000 higher in the second quarter versus last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $4,000,000 higher for negligible margin impact.

Speaker 2

As we noted last quarter, our electrification Vacation business remains profitable on a contribution basis, but will generally show negative profit and margin when we factor in continued investment we are making to bring EV business up to scale. However, this investment is variable and this quarter our required investment was lower than it was last year, which is why the walk shows some profit growth. This is just a matter of timing and we expect investment will ramp up in the second half of twenty twenty three. 3rd, foreign currency translation lowered sales by $21,000,000 as the dollar increased in value against several foreign currencies. This lowered profit by $5,000,000 for a margin impact of about 20 basis points.

Speaker 2

Finally, The recovery of prior period commodity cost increases added $10,000,000 in sales and net profit benefit of $37,000,000 driven by lower commodity costs compared to last year. This resulted in 140 basis point margin benefit. Next, I'll turn to Slide 11 for Closer look at the drivers of free cash flow change in the 2nd quarter. Free cash flow was $137,000,000 in the 2nd quarter. Higher profit this quarter was offset by smaller incremental improvement in working capital and higher capital investments.

Speaker 2

A few items of note. Cash interest was $5,000,000 higher due to higher interest rates and an accelerated payment relating to our debt refinancing. Working capital improvement was $74,000,000 lower in this year's Q2, primarily driven by increased sales and higher inventories for new program launches. And finally, capital spending was $32,000,000 higher than last year to support our backlog of new business. Please turn with me now to Slide 12 for our revised guidance for 2023.

Speaker 2

We have revised our full year guidance ranges due to solid first half results and our expectations for a stable second half. We now expect sales to be approximately $10,700,000,000 At the midpoint of our guidance range, this is an increase of $100,000,000 from our prior outlook and an increase of $545,000,000 over 2022. The sales increase is being driven by lower currency headwinds and higher expected commodity recoveries as material prices have remained elevated longer than previously expected. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be about $850,000,000 at the midpoint of our revised guidance range, which is up approximately $50,000,000 from our prior outlook and $150,000,000 higher than last year. The increase in guidance is driven by improving operational efficiencies, slightly lower EV spending and a beneficial product and market mix.

Speaker 2

Profit margin is now expected to be approximately 7.6 to 8.2%, a 40 basis points improvement at the midpoint of that range from our last guide and a 100 basis points improvement over last year. Free cash flow is expected to be approximately $75,000,000 at the midpoint of the range, which is a $50,000,000 increase from our prior guidance. Diluted adjusted EPS is expected to be $0.80 per share at the midpoint of the range, a $0.30 improvement. Please turn with me now to Slide 13, where I will highlight the drivers of the full year expected sales and profit changes from last year. In line with our revised guidance ranges, we are updating the drivers of our year over year change in sales and profit for 2023.

Speaker 2

Beginning with traditional organic growth, compared to last year, we now expect $380,000,000 in additional sales from traditional products through a combination of new business, market growth, market share gains and customer recoveries. This revised estimate is about $50,000,000 lower than our previous outlook to anticipated lower gross inflation and subsequent recoveries from customers. Adjusted EBITDA increases over the last year for traditional organic sales Growth is now expected to be about $125,000,000 or about $45,000,000 higher than our previous estimate due to a more efficient operating environment and beneficial product and market mix. Note that net cost inflation compared to last year is still estimated to be about a $50,000,000 headwind. Our outlook for EV organic sales remains unchanged as we expect about $150,000,000 in incremental EV product sales this year.

Speaker 2

However, the timing of investments we are making for development and commercialization of this new technology has shifted out a portion of the cost, meaning our expected EV sales to be about $20,000,000 decrease in adjusted EBITDA this year compared to our prior estimate of a $35,000,000 decrease. Foreign currency translation on sales is now expected to be a slight tailwind of approximately $15,000,000 primarily due to the relative strength in the euro and Brazilian real. However, due to the blended basket of currencies in which we contract, we still expect a slight profit headwind of about $5,000,000 Finally, our revised commodity outlook is expecting material prices to remain elevated longer this year than previously planned, meaning that our prior estimate of $35,000,000 lower sales due to lower recoveries has been revised upwards, so that recoveries will be equal to last year as we continue to recover the higher costs. We still expect total material prices to be lower than last year. Our revised outlook is a net profit tailwind of about $50,000,000 This is about $20,000,000 lower than our previous estimate.

Speaker 2

Please turn with me to Slide 14 for our outlook on free cash flow for 2023. Our revised Full year free cash flow outlook is about $75,000,000 at the midpoint, primarily due to higher profit. We We expect about $150,000,000 of higher free cash flow from increased profits on higher sales and lower input costs. Lower one time costs will offset higher taxes due to the increased profit. Working capital remains unchanged in our current outlook as we continue to improve capital efficiency.

Speaker 2

Our sales growth and launch cadence this year will likely result in about $190,000,000 less in free cash flow generation compared to last year. Capital spending remains unchanged. To support our sales growth and technology transformation, we are expecting to invest about $70,000,000 more in capital expenditures as compared to last year. Finally, turning to Page 15 for an update for a strong balance And our 2nd quarter refinancing actions. On the left side of the page, you can see that we have ample liquidity of about 1.6 1,000,000,000 at the end of the 2nd quarter.

Speaker 2

Our maturity profile is illustrated on the right side of the page. During the quarter, we took proactive actions to bolster our debt Capital profile by extending maturities and balancing our geographic borrowings. In May, we issued 4.20 bond maturing in 2025, the remainder was used to repay outstanding borrowings on the revolving credit facility. We expect to redeem the remaining 2025 bonds over the next 12 months. Our balanced liquidity, attractive long term debt maturity and free cash flow generation to continue to give us sound foundation to continue to transform our business for an electrified world.

Speaker 2

Thank you for listening on this Friday. I will now turn the call over to Josh to open for questions.

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Tom Nieregin with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 3

Hi, thanks for taking the question. I just had a question on the guidance raise EBITDA bridges, if I compare the Q1 bridge you guys provided to the Q2 bridge, Obviously, the traditional EBITDA moves higher. You called out more efficient operating environment and mix. Just would love to hear more kind of details there. And then the timing of investment shift in EVs is creating the reason why that piece of the bridge is moving higher.

Speaker 3

That sounds like you're just saying is if I understand it correctly, just shifting The investments to 2024, is that fair to say or is there anything more behind that? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes, I'll take the EV first. This is Tim. So yes, I think what we're seeing in the business is On the EV side is just a little bit of slipping on the investment, a little bit that will flow into 2024. So we're about $15,000,000 Less now than we were originally, but we still expect to invest significantly in that business as we continue the transformation. On the traditional, what you're really seeing is some of what we've been talking about, right.

Speaker 2

A lot of work It's been going on in the operating level of the business to become more efficient and to drive those improvements. Some of that's been held back by these volatile demand patterns and supply chain issues. As those start to abate and we started to see that late in the quarter, You start to see the operating improvements in the plant start to flow through and that's really what's being reflected When you look at the improvement in the flow through and conversion on our traditional business.

Speaker 3

And then on mix?

Speaker 2

Mix, yes, so obviously you're seeing some higher mix relative to Our off highway business that tends to come with higher margins and offset in other parts of the business.

Speaker 4

Okay, got it. Thanks a lot. I'll turn it over.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Tom.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Colin Langan with Wells Fargo. Your line is

Speaker 4

open. Great. Thanks for taking my question. When I look at your implied second half Versus the first half, you have slightly down sales, but margins, I think, something like 70 basis points down, which is a pretty high decremental. I think most suppliers are indicating things get better in the second half, so you seem to be bucking that trend.

Speaker 4

What would drive the weakness in the second half versus the first half? What are the factors we're just thinking about that cause margins to kind of erode from here?

Speaker 2

Hey, Collyn, this is Tim. Thanks for the question. Yes, it's a couple of things. So, big driver on sales, so sales are down about 80,000,000 First half to second half, that's driven by recoveries and commodities with a little bit of offset those for FX. I think and then on the EBITDA side and those recoveries don't forget don't come with any margin.

Speaker 2

And then the commodities kind of flow through with very High margin. And if you look at our EBITDA, it's down $40 ish million between first half and second half. That's evenly split, right. If you think about it, we made money or on an incremental basis had through profit on EV, which we're now showing as an overall loss for the year, still showing as an overall loss slightly lower. So that differential is about half of that.

Speaker 2

The other is really just the lower flow through from commodities that we're expecting to continue to decrease, which now we don't see. You really look at the base traditional business, it's down on sales and about breakeven on profit. So When you look at those that decremental is actually really, really good. So when you kind of parse it apart, I would say the business is still in the back half. We show pretty sizable improvement on a base organic sales level.

Speaker 4

Got it. That's helpful. Then all the segment margins were really good, except Power Technologies seem to be a pretty weak margin there. What's going on in that segment? Is that some of the EV investments?

Speaker 4

And how should we think about the trajectory of that?

Speaker 2

Yes. So it's 2 things. So that business we continue to launch and bring up to scale on the battery and electronics cooling. So we expect that to improve in the back half As our customers continue to move through that launch cadence, on the traditional side, right, so The difference in our Powertech business versus some of the other businesses, that's a very diverse business from a commodities perspective And from a just the sheer number of part numbers we have versus say the light vehicle driveline business. So some of this is also driven by our ability to continue to have and get the recoveries.

Speaker 2

We see that those recoveries that teams continue to work. We'll see some more of that benefit coming in and catch up in the back half of the year. So we do expect that the margin profile and the conversions in that business will improve in the second half versus the first half.

Speaker 4

Got it. All right. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 5

Sure.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer. Your line is

Speaker 6

open. Hey, thanks. I guess first just

Speaker 7

a follow-up to Colin's question around The second half, and I just want to unpack it a little bit further. Excluding commodity, What are you actually assuming in terms of second half versus first half on organic sales? Are you assuming basically flat organic sales first half to second half? Is it getting a little bit better because base yes, go ahead.

Speaker 2

I'm sorry. Yes, organic sales will be down a little bit, first half to second half, but that's primarily driven by lower recoveries on lower growth, gross inflation, markets more or less flat.

Speaker 7

Okay. All right. I'll take that offline. Congratulations on the e axle award. I'm just curious a little bit about the content there.

Speaker 7

I know you can't name The manufacturer, yes, it sounds pretty significant. So just would love to understand your full content on this. You're supplying The rigid BME axle, does this potentially include motor and inverter? Is that sort of an option to add on? Maybe you can talk a little bit about the content and how this is leverageable?

Speaker 2

Hey, Noah. Good morning. Thanks for the questions. This is Jim. As you alluded and I mentioned, I really can't go too far out there in terms of specifics on Customer for sure, but even the content for clarification.

Speaker 2

And for reference for everybody and the key with us is when it's in house supply of ElectroDynamics, there's a lot of opportunity for people to back into potentially what the technology would be and we're not going to get out in front of any of our customers probably more than most So what I can tell you is that as I go through as I went through in my prepared remarks, our suite of electrified products, The only thing I'd add to it is the e thermal piece and we call it the 4 in-one system. There are strong elements Of those, the 4 in 1, I just can't be specific on which ones today. So it will be The mechanical as well as portions of thermal and electrodynamics.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. I mean, maybe just the second part of my question about how you see this as leverageable to future RFP activity. I mean to get this high volume award

Operator

to be designed in.

Speaker 7

What do you think this might mean in terms of the growth of the EV business from here?

Speaker 2

Well, starting it kind of is a starting point. What it certainly does is it confirms what I think we all knew by now, but I'm going to say it anyway is that Customers like they have for years in the axle business and the seat business and all sorts of other businesses, they're going to have a bit of a pivot table of what's going to produce In house

Speaker 5

and what they're not

Speaker 2

going to produce in house, etcetera, etcetera. So as we've been saying since 2016, double down in 2018, We had high confidence with our partnerships with our customers that there was going to be a place for our e axle business, e transmission business But you had to have the full capability to create value. What it means to us is that as we're across all of the end markets, The scaling on certainly on engineering, the scaling on supply and components, the scaling on How to launch the product, the scaling on having the global footprint to support global programs, I could go on and on and on. That's what the whole Thesis was from the very beginning and obviously the thesis came together directly the way we expected it to. The most important thing is the institutional learnings of our company.

Speaker 2

I mean Our company now versus where we were 6 or 7 years ago when it was pure mechanical, very good mechanical Engineering company, now it's now you kind of go across our company and it's almost figuratively half and half when you think about electric dynamics And mechanical, that you have those capabilities. Why is that important? When you're facing off with your customer and you're trying to create value for them to help them sell more vehicles in the long haul, You put them in a much better position because by now we're taking all the lessons learned of all the bus market products we have in the field, all the medium duty truck Products we have in the field, off highway products we have in the field and this is just a good representative example as the inflection point came to the light vehicle Truck market, which is where we participate, we don't participate in pass car, is that we were prepared and we were able to create value with our customers to give them high confidence that they were going to win in the market with their electric vehicles and specifically electric truck vehicles.

Speaker 7

That's great context, Jim and congratulations again on the award and a great quarter.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Noah, for both. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from James Picariello with BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hey, guys. This is Jake filling in for James. First, if you could just talk through the net cost inflation dynamics. It looks like everything was fully offset in the first half and you have about $50,000,000 headwind in the second half, am I thinking about that right?

Speaker 2

Yes, that's correct. And we had little bit of net inflation in the first half, just kind of rounds away. But so yes, we are expecting to see the net $50,000,000 in the back half. So the big driver is in the first half of the year, we continue to see recoveries over recoveries from the prior year coming through. And we don't expect that obviously to continue in the back half.

Speaker 2

And so what's showing through in the back half is So the net unrecovered inflation number that we expected for the year, despite the lower gross overall gross costs.

Speaker 8

All right, thanks. And then, just to follow-up on the The BMXEL win, could you give us some more color on the timing from when you expect this to launch and The overall investment required to support higher volume program like this?

Speaker 2

Yes. So, we can't talk specifically about Timing, but I can tell you that it is it would be outside of our traditional 3 year backlog window. And then obviously an award such as this does come with an increased amount of investment both on The period cost side and on the fixed capital side.

Speaker 6

All right. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. It seems like you're winning more of these light vehicle driveline awards as opposed to a couple of years ago. I thought it looked like maybe you'd benefit more from electrification on commercial vehicle driveline side or from hybrids or maybe battery cooling plates on the light vehicle side. So where would you say that Either the light vehicle e beam axle or the light vehicle, call it 3 in 1 or 4 in 1 Electronic drive unit opportunity, were those sort of fit in kind of rank ordered in terms of the electrification opportunities for the whole company?

Speaker 2

Great question. A little bit difficult to answer to be honest with you, but I'll give it my best shot. The best way to kind of, I hope, illustrate it to the audience today and yourself is that if you took a snapshot in time of like 5 years ago, where a company like Dana would have been having the various RFI that turned into an RFQ with our customers that turned into an internal combustion engine or diesel engine type of driveline Sourcing situation, it's essentially the same thing for electrification today. Almost everything that comes at us has an element of Mostly electrification, maybe some hybrid to it, but it doesn't matter. The point I'm trying to make is it doesn't matter anymore what end market that we're participating in.

Speaker 2

All of them are coming. It's just a matter of, are they did they set up for example, in the commercial vehicle segment, did some of our commercial vehicle customers Have first mover position, get some stuff out to the market using what we call a direct drive solution, which basically Is a bridge off of a traditional architecture for an ICE vehicle and they got that and maybe that's okay for 2 to 3 years and therefore no incremental New sourcing has happened since or anything that we want to talk about has happened since. In the light vehicle standpoint, They're just kind of maybe they're going a little bit faster directly to a full e axle solution, which by our definition and e transmission Depending on which application will be the most efficient solution, therefore the sourcing pattern seems like it's more prominent right now, but it's really not. It's all of the end markets are sourcing and electrification these days. That's just how it's going.

Speaker 9

Okay, great. Thanks. Very helpful. Maybe just lastly, I'd like to ask about 2 of these Kind of related comments in the slides. One is on Slide 12 pertaining to higher sales in 2023 due to cost recoveries hindering margin.

Speaker 9

And then the other comment on Slide 13 referencing gross inflation and related recoveries now expected to be lower than the prior estimate with the Net impact from inflation on the full year profit being the same. So with margins for the whole sector lower the supplier sector are lower than Where they were pre pandemic in part given this phenomena, if I could ask like is lower inflation because we hear about these headlines about lower inflation. Now is that The answer really to restoring supplier margins or would that just simply be offset by lower related recoveries such that you need to rebuild margin by some other means such as fixed cost leverage or a pivot toward Intrinsically higher margin products, etcetera? Or should investors not even be too bothered about getting back to Pre pandemic margins because margins might be structurally lower now because of all this lower no margin pass Higher costs and maybe instead we should focus on return on invested capital or cash and cash returns or just kind of how are you thinking about that?

Speaker 2

Yes. Ryan, I think you hit it right on the head. So I think as you think about The inflation effect on the business, it has a even if you were to recover 100% of your inflationary costs, which would keep your total profitability the same, you're going to have a margin squeeze because the customers are not paying any margin, any profit on those costs. And in fact, if you look at us this year, right, we still expect to see a $50,000,000 Net headwind. So that's not only do we have the margin impact of just if we were to recover dollar for dollar, we haven't recovered dollar for dollar.

Speaker 2

So I think when you think about the supply base, I think it's going to be more important over the longer term. Over the longer term as all the programs turn over and things get repriced And all the costs get built in. I think you'll see margins start to move back to where they may have otherwise been. I think that's a long road. I think the better metric to be thinking about is total profitability, total amount of dollars generated and what that return is.

Speaker 2

Because Our view is as we move through, especially as late these large programs are now rolling on and we're seeing them come through and we get them repriced. While we're recovering those added costs, we're not recovering all that margin. But what we are doing is getting these programs back to an equal or better economic return. So I think as you think about return on invested capital, that's a really good way to think about These programs and the way we are continuing to think about them because margin as a percentage is I think going to be continued to be lower than what it was pre pandemic.

Speaker 9

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Sure. Your next question comes from the line of Dan Levy with Barclays. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Jim, why don't I start with a high level, Please. I think the theme that we're seeing from some of the legacy automakers on EVs and we've seen it this week in earnings Is it just a tougher environment for them on EVs, this EV euphoria dissipated, volume targets are getting pushed out for just pushed out The volume targets on EVs, there's an increased push to be a bit more efficient on spend, maybe more reuse of architectures. How does this impact you?

Speaker 6

Are you seeing automakers change their focus on the light vehicle side, on vertical integration? I mean, this used to be very heavily focused on Vertical integration, but perhaps with the idea that there just isn't enough volume for those volume targets getting pushed out, does that maybe change the way that Some of the automakers are looking at vertical integration, maybe opens up more opportunity for you?

Speaker 2

That's great questions. A lot to unpack there, but I'll do my best. The way I see it, first of all, in terms of the volumes, I absolutely follow the same commentary that you follow as it relates to that. But at least from our line of sight, At least in the truck business and I think we all we have to remind ourselves of that quite regularly. Truck business versus car business is 2 different things, Right.

Speaker 2

And at least from the truck business and where we see electrification going at least from our line of sight with our customers, I think they see it going as well. It still is nothing but green shoots and positive. So I'm not trying to market a positive story there. That's just the facts as I see it based on a bunch of other data points. As it relates to running the company and how Dana operates as well, the beauty of the way we've set the company up as you know over the last 6 to 7, 8 years is this leverage the core strategy.

Speaker 2

The priority of the enterprise strategy is to leverage not only people capacity, but also equipment capacity and engineering capacity and so on and so forth. In a lot of our products and components and so on and so forth, we will be able to balance, I'll call it almost like balancing A line balance in a plant, you can line balance your capacities for all the things I just referred to, to protect the company and actually benefit the company moving forward. So Maybe you weren't going so directly down that road, but the way I see it is, there is plenty of opportunity for us to move forward and we're very bullish There's going to continue to be the same balance, if I could remind the audience perhaps, the same balance on axles being in house versus outsourced. There's going to be some form of balance of that for years to come. And what's the important point to remind everybody, it's been that way for decades.

Speaker 2

Now there's plenty of axle business that's been in house Across end markets in the past, there'll be plenty of that in the future, but there'll be plenty on the outside because there's plenty of use cases, companies such as Dana that has such a reputation and capability, especially in areas such as the off road enthusiast market, the truck business, Truck Business and the Commercial Vehicle segments, the consumers and the dealers and the fleets, I mean, they don't just pick us because we're commodity, They pick us because we help them sell trucks. So there's that's not in my view is not going to change. If anything, it's going to we're going to benefit from it because of what we've done in electrification. We're not guessing at it. We've been doing it now 3, 4, 5 years in production.

Speaker 2

So I feel very strong about it.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Emmanuel Rosner with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Thank you very much. So my first question, as we start thinking about 2024, I'm curious if you'd share your thoughts on what is sort of like a good Starting point or a good base to sort of like build our initial forecast. I guess it's more The first half where you in 2023, we've had some better than expected margins. Is it more the second half because And you would have, I guess, the full impact from the ECB investment as well as some net unrecovered inflation, whereas like in the first half, you recovered some inflation related to last year or is this sort of like the full year? I'm just curious to what extent You think the excess rate that you're essentially implying for this year is sort of like the right way to think about the benefits or is it or would it be better than

Speaker 2

This is Tim. Hey, we're just trying to get through 2023 here before we get to 2024, but But I'll try to do my best for you. I think the way to think about this is really from our full year forecast and sort of how it implies us coming out of 2023 and into 2024. Earlier this year, we gave a longer term view. We still see that view as being where we want to get the company.

Speaker 2

And I think the company's performance and the raise in guidance here out of 2023 just reiterates Makes us more confident in our ability to get there, if that helps you in sort of planning around 2024?

Speaker 5

Yes, it does. I guess another way to ask maybe is, if things lay out the way you're sort of guiding now, What will be left by the end of 2023 in terms of unrecovered inflation, Both material and non material? And what would be sort of like the path forward to or I guess the likelihood of recovering those in 2024?

Speaker 2

Yes. So in terms of unrecovered inflation, we continue like this year we'll have another $50,000,000 of unrecovered So that again until we sort of see all of the programs really work their way out, I don't think you could say that, hey, We've gotten everything recovered. I think we continue to work with all the customers to go get recoveries, but That's going to be with us for a little while. On commodities, they tend to ebb and flow through the regular business and those The agreements and processes that we have in place are working extremely well, and we would expect that to continue.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. Well, hey, thanks, everybody. This is Jim. Thanks, everybody, for joining the call. As always, we appreciate your attendance and interest in Dana.

Speaker 2

Obviously, as a continuation from the strong Q1 results, You can see from today's update that Dana is not only trending extremely well, we're progressing to trajectory of the company record financial performance similar to what we delivered in 2018, 2019 and had financially guided to in 2020 prior to the COVID shutdowns, which Commenced obviously in March of 2020. What's important to note though is Dana is very unique. Dana over the same period of time not only was a first mover in establishing in house ePowertrain Electrification capability. We had the courage to never waver from this commitment throughout the time from the what I would argue was a 3 year black swan event in the B2B mobility supply industry. Wavering from the enterprise strategy and decommitting from electrification would have been the easy answer.

Speaker 2

However, as we can tell now, it definitely would not have been the right answer. Today, in addition to the Tremendous revenue growth we've had over the last 6 years improving our earnings intensity, Dana is clearly a winner in electrification and a supplier of choice for all mobility segments. As electrification volumes continue to accelerate and they will, Dana will continue to be an energy source agnostic Partnering with our partner customers in both internal combustion engine and electrified vehicle manufacturing for years to come and to win. With your again, thank you for your time and attendance. We look forward to talking to you next month or next quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Dana Q2 2023
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