Albany International Q3 2024 Earnings Report

Albany International EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.80
• Consensus EPS: $0.45
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.35
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.02

Albany International Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $298.40 million
• Expected Revenue: $304.51 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$6.11 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +6.20%

Albany International Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2024
• Date: 10/30/2024
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, October 31, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Albany International (NYSE:AIN) Corp. is a global developer and manufacturer of advanced engineered materials and process technologies. The company serves customers in the paper, aerospace and other industrial markets through two primary business segments: Machine Clothing and Albany Engineered Composites.

The Machine Clothing segment produces custom-designed fabrics, belts and related products used in paper manufacturing and other industrial processes. These products support applications such as forming, pressing and drying paper, helping manufacturers improve production efficiency and product quality.

Albany Engineered Composites develops and manufactures lightweight composite components and assemblies, primarily for the aerospace industry. Its offerings include structural components and other specialized composite products designed for commercial and military aircraft, as well as selected industrial applications.

Founded in 1895, Albany International is headquartered in Rochester, New Hampshire, and serves customers in North America, Europe, Asia and other international markets. The company operates manufacturing and service locations in multiple regions to support its global customer base.

Albany International Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Q3 consolidated net sales of $298 million grew 6.1% year-over-year, while Machine Clothing sales rose 9.9% to $183 million, driven by the Heimbach acquisition despite European market softness.
• Engineered Composites revenue was flat at $115 million, including a $16 million EAC production adjustment; backlog remains above $1 billion with defense and space growth offsetting LEAP program headwinds.
• Year-to-date free cash flow reached $78 million (Q3 free cash flow of $32 million), supported by strong operating cash flow and capital discipline, and the balance sheet remains healthy with $127 million in cash and net leverage below one turn.
• 2024 guidance has been tightened with consolidated adjusted EBITDA modestly raised and a mid-point adjusted EPS of $3.20; full-year 2025 guidance will be provided at year-end.
• Key leadership appointments across segments and a planned Spring 2025 Investor Day will showcase the company’s five-year strategic growth plans and innovation roadmap.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Albany International Third Quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press Star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press Star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, JC Chetnani, VP Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

[JC Chetnani, VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at Albany International]

Thank you, Brittany, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Albany International's Third Quarter 2024 earnings conference call. As a reminder for those listening on the call, please refer to our press release issued last night detailing our quarterly financial results. Contained in the text of the release is a notice regarding our forward-looking statements and the use of certain non-GAAP financial measures and their reconciliation to GAAP. For the purposes of this conference call, those same statements apply to our verbal remarks this morning. Today, we will make statements that are forward-looking and contain a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied. For a full discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to both our earnings release of October 30th, 2024, as well as our SEC filings, including our 10-K.

[JC Chetnani, VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at Albany International]

Now, I will turn the call over to Gunnar Kleveland, our President and CEO, who will provide opening remarks. Gunnar.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Thank you, JC. Good morning and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining our Third Quarter earnings call. I will provide an overview of our business performance. Rob will later discuss our final results in detail. I'm pleased with the overall results of the quarter, as we focused on operational excellence evidenced by strong results at Machine Clothing and our ability to generate free cash flow of $78 million year-to-date. Furthermore, our balance sheet is very healthy. Turning to the EAC adjustments announced earlier this month, we are addressing operational issues to stabilize production and to advance the ramp-up of the programs at our Salt Lake facility. Our team is making good progress, leveraging support from our other sites. Machine Clothing revenues at $183 million grew year-over-year, driven by our Heimbach acquisition, partially offset by publication grade globally and packaging in Europe. In the third quarter, engineered fabrics delivered year-over-year growth.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Overall, the industry's secular growth trends remain in place for packaging, tissue, and pulp. In terms of geographies, North America remains a strong contributor, while Europe continues to demonstrate weakness. Overall, Asia is stable, except for China, which is experiencing some softness. Our global order backlog remains stable. Turning to Heimbach, our integration plan remains on track. We made progress on functional organizational integration this past quarter, and the closing of our South Korea and Rochdale, U.K. facilities is largely complete. Revenue has seen an impact from the overall weakness in Europe, combined with the SAP implementation, which has delayed some sales into the fourth quarter. In our Engineered Composites segment, we recorded revenues of $150 million, while our profitability was impacted by our previously announced EAC adjustments. In our commercial markets, we have seen near-term weakness in LEAP and our other Boeing programs.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Our defense business continues to grow, primarily on the CH-53K and JASSM platforms. Though we have seen some near-term reduction in the Joint Strike Fighter program this year, we expect recovery in 2025 and beyond. Our backlog is well over $1 billion, and longer-term, we continue to see growth in space and our other commercial programs. With the LEAP program, we're monitoring the situation at Boeing. But as previously announced at our second quarter earnings call and earlier this month, we have twice lowered our 2024 production plan. We're working with Safran on our 2025 production plan, and we'll share that with you when it is finalized as part of our overall 2025 guidance. Our long-term fundamentals for the business remain strong, and we have new operating leadership in place, all of which gives me strong confidence in the future of the segment.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

It's important to note that the updated margin profile of the business remains well ahead of our peer group. Overall, our business fundamentals remain solid, and I have my team in place. We have Chris Stone as a new leader at Albany Engineered Composites. Chris brings strong experience, discipline, and strategic agility to the segments, which will support our strong growth projection. In Albany Machine Clothing, Merle Stein took over leadership after several years of being groomed to the role and will take his industry experience and strong business development capability into shaping the future of our Machine Clothing segment. As disclosed earlier, due to the common materials science of our businesses, Rob Hansen was appointed CTO and is leading our overall innovation and R&D. In order to capitalize on our significant investment in R&D, we recently hired Paul Watts to lead our new business ventures.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Paul has experience from Boeing and Textron and will take new product through a gated process for addition to our businesses. With all this change in momentum, we also plan on hosting an investor day in the spring of 2025 to showcase the plans for the next five-year period and give analysts and investors the opportunity to hear directly from our new management team. With that, I'll hand it over to Rob to provide more details in the quarter. Rob.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Thank you, Gunnar, and good morning, everyone. I will review our third quarter results and then provide our outlook for the balance of the year. Consolidated net sales came in at $298 million, up 6.1% from the third quarter of last year. Machine clothing net sales of $183 million increased 9.9% versus the third quarter of the prior year, driven by Heimbach. North American comparable sales were higher year-over-year and reflect a strength in that market. However, we were negatively impacted by continued weakness in Europe and mixed markets in Asia. The SAP implementation at Heimbach has also provided a near-term headwind as we transition to our new systems. Organic sales for machine clothing for the period declined 1% year-over-year, largely due to sales delays from the SAP implementation.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

AEC net sales of $115 million were largely flat versus the third quarter of 2023 on a GAAP basis, inclusive of a $16 million negative top-line impact from the EAC adjustments in the quarter. We experienced growth in our space and emerging platforms, offset by lower sales in LEAP and CH-53K. I want to highlight that excluding the cumulative catch-up impact, our underlying sales on our CH-53K program increased as we work towards ramping production to meet our customers' needs. Consolidated gross profit was $90 million, down from $102 million in the prior year, driven by the EAC cumulative catch-up adjustment of $22 million. Excluding the EAC adjustment, our gross profit for the quarter would have increased to $112 million, with a margin of approximately 36%, in line with last year's results.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Machine clothing gross margin increased from 47.6% in the third quarter compared to 48%, I'm sorry, increased in the third quarter of 2023 to 48.6% in 2024, marking the first year-over-year improvement since the Heimbach acquisition. The margin increase was primarily driven by reduced input costs. Excluding Heimbach, machine clothing gross margins increased approximately 270 basis points to 53.4%, reflecting continued excellent execution. We continue to make progress on our Heimbach integration and are on track to meet our long-term synergy targets. AEC gross margin decreased from 19.7% in the third quarter of 2023 to 1.3%, driven by EAC adjustments that were detailed previously. Absent the $22 million EAC cumulative adjustment, AEC's gross margin for the quarter would be 18.2%, a 150 basis point reduction from the prior year. Net R&D expenses increased $1 million in the third quarter versus the prior year, remaining at approximately 4% of revenue.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

SG&A expenses for the quarter were essentially flat. However, as a percent of revenue, SG&A has decreased from 18.5% to 17.5%. Corporate expenses decreased $500,000 versus the prior year to $14.3 million. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 6.6% versus 25.3% in the prior year, mainly due to favorable discrete tax adjustments. This discrete tax benefit is mostly attributable to the true-up of the prior year estimated taxes and the release of a valuation allowance in a non-U.S. jurisdiction due to positive evidence indicating that a full valuation allowance was no longer required. GAAP net income attributable to the company for the quarter was $18 million compared to $27 million last year. The reduction is largely due to the EAC adjustments, which negatively impacted net income by $17 million.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

GAAP diluted EPS was $0.57 per share in this quarter versus $0.87 in the same period last year. After adjustments primarily related to the Heimbach acquisition and other restructuring activities, as detailed in our non-GAAP reconciliation, the adjusted diluted EPS was $0.80 versus $1.02 in the same period last year. Our EAC cumulative adjustments negatively impacted our third quarter diluted EPS by $0.55 per share. Please note that our third quarter EPS also benefited from the timing of certain operating expenses, which we expect to occur in the fourth quarter. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $54 million for the third quarter versus $65 million in the prior year period. Machine clothing adjusted EBITDA, including Heimbach, was $64 million, an increase of 12% versus the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margins were 35.2% versus 34.5% the prior year, with the increase reflecting improved operations across the business.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

AEC adjusted EBITDA was $4 million as compared to $22 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin at AEC was 3.1% of sales versus 19.3% in the prior year. AEC's adjusted EBITDA, excluding the EAC cumulative adjustments, would have been $26 million or 19.8% of sales. During the third quarter, free cash flow was $32 million, with positive operating cash flow of $47 million, offset by capital expenditures of $15 million. This brings our year-to-date free cash flow to $78 million versus $25 million in the prior year. Our balance sheet remains strong, with a cash balance of over $127 million and $440 million of borrowing capacity under our committed credit facility. Net leverage is below one turn. Turning to our outlook for the balance of 2024, we are tightening our guidance for the balance of the year relative to the guide provided earlier in the month.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

We have narrowed our revenue guidance for both segments, effectively leaving our midpoint similar to the guide we provided earlier this month. Our consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance is slightly higher than our prior guide and has also been narrowed. It should be pointed out that our full-year AEC EBITDA guide translates to high-teens margins for the fourth quarter, reflective of the underlying strength of the business. The midpoint of our adjusted EPS guidance is $3.20, a 5% increase from the prior guide. We plan on providing full-year 2025 guidance when we announce our year-end results. We will also provide longer-term guidance when we host our investor day next spring. Now I'd like to turn the call over for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Peter Arment with Baird. Your line is now open.

[Peter Arment, Managing Director at Baird]

Yeah, thanks. Good morning, Gunnar and Rob. Gunnar, can you give us your latest updated thoughts on the Gulfstream contract that you talked about earlier this month, just, you know, kind of how that progresses from here, what's the latest, and how do we think about, you know, kind of, revenue for next year?

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Yeah, Peter, there's no real change on, like, contract or performance since our call a month ago. We're putting effort on the program with the team that is there engineering and working with Gulfstream to get to the rate and deliver a part with less hours than we do today. So the effort is there, but there's no real update. I don't expect anything to impact our revenues for the program next year.

[Peter Arment, Managing Director at Baird]

Okay. That's helpful. And then in your kind of, I guess, I don't know what you can say about the classified work or the business that you've been winning. How does that look in terms of, you know, a revenue opportunity when we think about, you know, next year and beyond? I know you'll probably give a lot of details, you know, next spring at your investor day, but what's going on in the defense, classified world for you guys?

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Yeah, we are very active in on the defense side and also with some commercial opportunities. I'm not going to get into details there, and we're not announcing any specific deals this quarter. But there's a lot in work. I see a great opportunity for us going forward. The buildup of our backlog over the last three quarters is indicative, I think, to what we're doing.

[Peter Arment, Managing Director at Baird]

Okay. Appreciate it. And just one quick one, Rob, on your guidance for, you know, AEC's EBITDA for the year kind of obviously implies a nice step up in the fourth quarter. Can you talk a little bit about some of the moving parts there and the confidence level around that EBITDA?

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Sure. Yeah, Peter, we have a fairly high confidence level in our guide, especially considering we're, you know, we're two months out from finishing the year. You know, what we've seen is a really good, you know, increase in volume in some of our more higher margin areas as well, that we expect to see continued growth in the fourth quarter. We are, you know, controlling expenses as needed. So, you know, overall, you know, certainly with Chris on board and the team's focus on turning things at Salt Lake, we feel good about the guide. I mean, the implied margin range, as I'm sure you did the math, Peter, is, you know, 17.5% for the fourth quarter. That's the midpoint of our AEC guide. And it's a good business.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

So we feel good about the profile.

[Peter Arment, Managing Director at Baird]

Appreciate that, Colin. I'll jump back in queue. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you so much. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Your line is now open.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Hey, morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Hey, Mike.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Just to, hey, just to stay on Peter's last question, I mean, 17.5% is good, but I mean, these margins are trending down. You know, how should we think about the longer-term trajectory? And, you know, you're doing more defense classified work, presumably, you know, that's first-of-a-kind products or structures, which always inevitably are going to carry design, development, engineering risk. So how can we be confident in these margins on a go-forward basis?

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Yeah. So, I mean, of course, once we will give the 2025 guide when we announce our year-end results and we're planning on investor day. But, Mike, I think what should give us a lot of confidence is a lot of the areas where we're seeing good levels of growth are in higher-margin programs, especially on the commercial and, you know, kind of emerging or advanced air mobility platforms and space. So, you know, those are very good areas for us. And you're absolutely right. We definitely have a focus on some defense work, which, you know, does provide in the right contract setting, you know, really good margin opportunity and predictability and visibility. So we feel really good about the blend.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

I mean, we're definitely looking to have, you know, visibility given our strong backlog on what the margin profile should look like. And it's going to come down to execution to your, I think, to your point, Mike, right? We, on the commercial and space and other programs, we need to execute. And, you know, we, we're definitely feeling good about where we're situated going forward.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Are these classified? Are they cost-plus initially, or did you bid anything in the more high-risk firm fixed-price development or, you know, because I would think if it's cost-plus, that would be a little dilutive as you kind of go through them at first?

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Yeah. I mean, Mike, when we're looking at these development programs, you know, we're very careful about the amount of risk we're going to share with our customers. You know, we will typically look for some level of self-protection. So I don't think, you know, we're putting ourselves at very significant risk on these development programs, like some others. So.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay, fair. And then just shifting gears to LEAP, I mean, you know, the output has been revised down now, you know, down 10%. I mean, that's the third time. Can you talk to maybe the ramp trajectory? I mean, I know you're not going to give 2025 guidance, but it seems like the overall ramp there is going to be lower than planned. And I mean, can you give us any sense of what kind of inventory in the channel you might have? I mean, it seems like there might be at least 200 shipsets, you know, based on, you know, kind of if you were tracking tightly with Safran and how many revisions they've done this year. So any color on the LEAP program you can give us?

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Yeah. You know, we're comfortable with where we're at for the year, and we're working with Safran on our 2025 plan. There is a balance there, right? Our reductions have fit with where Safran is, and we'll continue to do that. It's a tight relationship. We also know that there is growth in the future, and we can't pull back too far and not be able to do the ramp-up. So that's part of the balance, as well. We're not going to give guidance for next year, but you can imagine that there is a balance there between maintaining the capability and the ramp-up, as well as minimizing the inventory.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Yeah. And, Mike, just one other thing to kind of keep in mind. When we provided our LEAP guide for the year, we were holding flat, and that was against a backdrop of a 25% expected increase at the beginning of the year. And obviously, that's been ratcheted down as the situation at Boeing has unfolded during the year. But the relative impact to us relative to, you know, those expecting those 25% increases was much more modest. We have taken our estimates down, but not and, you know, if you look at Safran's most recent earnings release, they were very clear to state that they understand the balance of their supply chain. They, you know, the long-term program is in excellent shape. The backlog is there.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

They want to be very careful not to damage the supply chain, of which we are a very important part of that.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay. Fair. Is the $600 million in AEC revenues from 2026 still good?

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Yeah. Mike, we're providing long-term guidance when we come out, you know, with our investor day. You know, so let's wait until then.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay. Fair. Thanks, guys.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Good question. Fair question.

[Operator]

Thank you so much. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Jordan Lyonnais with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

[Jordan Lyonnais, Equity Research Associate at Bank of America]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Again, looking long-term, I appreciate you won't give guidance on it now, but on the 787, the GE9X and 777X, how are you guys thinking about the programs given we've seen the softness on the 787? The 777X just got delayed, and presumably those engines will also have an impact.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Yeah. So 787, we expect growth. So they're not affected by the strike. And there is demand there. So we believe that that's a good program, going into next year. There is a delay on 9X. There was no impact this year. And I think for next year, as this is development and continued development of the engine, it minimal impact. Jordan.

[Jordan Lyonnais, Equity Research Associate at Bank of America]

Got it. Awesome. Thank you.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Thank you, Jordan.

[Operator]

Thank you so much. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Chigusa Katoku, with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

[Chigusa Katoku, VP of Equity Research at JP Morgan]

Hi. This is Chigusa Katoku on for Steve Tussa. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is on.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Good morning.

[Chigusa Katoku, VP of Equity Research at JP Morgan]

Good morning. My first question is on free cash flow. Year to date, the free cash flow conversion has pretty good improved over last year. But how should we think about conversion in 2025? And do you have any color on how it is by business? Does AEC continue to be a user of cash versus a generator?

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Sure. No, great question. So yeah, the year-to-date conversion ratio is about 110%, which is certainly probably a bit higher than we would expect over a very long-term cycle. So, but we are focused on it. I mean, cash flow has become a very critical focal area for us because it's, you know, what's going to drive our future growth. So as it relates to the business, you know, we do expect AEC. They were significant users of free cash flow and capital last year. We're seeing some of that come off this year as we are better managing our inventory, working capital balances at that business, but also at machine clothing.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

So I think, you know, going forward, you know, in the aerospace side, cash flow will tend to be a bit more volatile depending on the types of programs that we sign up for because typically early-stage programs are a user of cash. But that's a balance that we're working on. I think what you should expect from Albany Consolidated is continued strong cash flow generation as we go out into the future.

[Chigusa Katoku, VP of Equity Research at JP Morgan]

Okay. Great. Thanks. And then, shifting to MC, the margins were stronger than we had expected, and you attributed it to operational execution. But can you elaborate on that? And, what's the right runway to think about as we head into 2025?

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

I can start with that. I think it reflects the efforts that we're doing with the integration. It's not only affecting the improvements that we're getting from that you see at Heimbach, but also at the core business. And it's also just excellent execution and cost management by the team in you know a little bit of an uncertain time. So just kudos to the team for performing at that level.

[Chigusa Katoku, VP of Equity Research at JP Morgan]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you so much, and as a reminder, everyone, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. One moment for our next question. All right. Our next question comes from the line of Gautam Khanna with TD Cowen. Your name, your line is now open. Sorry.

[Jack Ayvazian, Investment Banking Director at TD Cowen]

Yeah. Hey, hey, guys. This is Jack Ayvazian for Gautam today. Thanks for the question.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Hi, Jack.

[Jack Ayvazian, Investment Banking Director at TD Cowen]

Hey, Rob. Just for LEAP, hate to go back to it, but just to be clear, did you guys take production down incrementally more from your last update? Because I think you guys called it down modestly last quarter, or maybe the Q3 update, but you know, since GE took it down 10% now, just want to be clear for you guys for 2024.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Yeah. So we had a lower plan for the year than what was projected from both Safran and GE, and then we took it down in the second quarter, and we took it down again on the 3rd of October. We have not changed it since then.

[Jack Ayvazian, Investment Banking Director at TD Cowen]

Okay. And would you be willing to maybe quantify the sort of step change? I think you guys put some numbers around it last quarter.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Yeah. It was very minimal. I mean, we're talking maybe a few million dollars, Jack, from, you know, the second quarter to the October 3rd call. Pretty nominal.

[Jack Ayvazian, Investment Banking Director at TD Cowen]

Okay. All right. Then just F-35, I know, maybe in your script you talk about. You discuss some softness there, expectations this year. I guess, like, moving forward, does the Lockheed sort of, you know, delivery restart? Does that help you guys at all? I guess how far away are you guys from that? I think $80 million target you might have called out, last investor day. Just wanted to kind of get the cadence of the growth trajectory there. Thanks so much.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

We've seen softness through the middle of this year, and we expect that to come back starting into next year for the Joint Strike Fighter. You know, we're pretty far out in the supply chain here, so that does affect us maybe to a lesser degree. But I expect the Joint Strike Fighter numbers to be steady into next year.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Right. Yeah. And, Jack, you know, I mean, we provided a view in 2022 on kind of what the potential was for F-35, and, you know, we'll certainly update that again at the investor day. But, you know, we believe in the program long-term. The fundamentals remain intact. You know, the program, Lockheed's, now that they've got the tech package three up and running, that's all positive signs that we're seeing right now on F-35.

[Jack Ayvazian, Investment Banking Director at TD Cowen]

Awesome. Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

[Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Albany International]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you so much for your question. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Gunnar Kleveland for closing remarks.

[Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO at Albany International]

Thank you. And thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your continued interest in Albany International. Thank you, and have a good day.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• JC Chetnani, VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer
• Gunnar Kleveland, President and CEO
• Rob Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer

Analysts

• Peter Arment, Managing Director at Baird
• Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst at Truist Securities
• Jordan Lyonnais, Equity Research Associate at Bank of America
• Chigusa Katoku, VP of Equity Research at JP Morgan
• Jack Ayvazian, Investment Banking Director at TD Cowen