AirBoss of America Q1 & AGM 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 9, 2024

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Airbus Shareholders' Meeting and discussion of the Q1 2024 results. My name is Gren Schoch, and I'm the Chairman and Co CEO of Airbus. With me today are Chris Bitsycakas, our President and Co CEO Frank Antille, our CFO and Chris Figuel, our EVP and General Counsel. Our agenda today will start with a discussion of the Q1 2024 results, followed by a shareholders' meeting. With respect to our results discussion, we will review the operational highlights for the quarter, followed by a discussion of our financial results.

Operator

We will then hold the shareholder meeting followed by taking questions from participants. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that our remarks today contain forward looking statement, including our estimates of future developments. We invite listeners to review risk factors related to our business in our annual information form and our MD and A, both of which are available on SEDAR plus on the corporate website. Also, we will discuss certain non GAAP measures including EBITDA. Reconciliations of these measures are available in our MD and A.

Operator

And finally, please note that our reporting currency is in U. S. Dollars. References today will be in U. S.

Operator

Dollars unless otherwise indicated. With that, I'll now turn this over to Chris Bitsakakis for the operational review. Chris?

Speaker 1

Thank you, Gren, Good morning, everyone. During Q1 2024, Airbus maintained its focus on operational execution, aggressive deleveraging activities and the recently announced strategic transition despite continuing to deal with challenging economic headwinds that impacted each segment to varying degrees. The company focused on risk mitigation plans in response to these economic challenges and managing costs with additional overhead reduction steps taken in manufactured products defense business. During the quarter, the company also amended its revolving credit facility to replace the leverage and interest coverage ratios with minimum adjusted EBITDA and liquidity requirements until the end of 2024. This amendment will give AirBoss added flexibility in the execution of our long term plan.

Speaker 1

As disclosed during Q1 2024, the company completed a resegmentation, which included a shift in reportable segments commencing with results for the Q4 of 2023 and the year ended December 31, 2023. AirBoss now reports results under 2 segments, AirBoss Rubber Solutions and AirBoss Manufactured Products. The ARS segment consists of the former Rubber Solutions segment and the rubber compounding operations at Actonville, Quebec that were previously included in the AirBoss Defence Group segment. The new AMP segment consists of AirBoss Engineered Products, formerly a standalone unit, and AirBoss Defense Group, also formerly a standalone unit. ARS experienced improvements in most business lines compared to Q4 2023 and Q1 2024 with a strong quarter with respect to sales volume and EBITDA.

Speaker 1

Despite impressive performance during the earlier part of 2023, there was pronounced softness experienced at the end of Q4 2023 as sales were impacted by customers focused on reducing inventory levels. Building on the traction experienced in Q1 2024, the segment remains focused on executing on its strategy to deliver strong results with specialized products, expanded production of a broader array of compounds, both white and color and enhanced flexibility in attracting and fulfilling new business through identified synergies and margin expansion. As a segment, Rubber Solutions continue to invest in research and development to support enhanced collaboration with customers. The A and P segment experienced continued softness in the rubber molded products operations because of OEM shuttering production in the current quarter to rebalance vehicle inventory levels and the ongoing impact from labor disruptions, which impacted OEMs in the earlier part of the prior quarter. The business continued its focus on managing costs and a commitment to drive efficiencies and best in class automation as well as diversification of its product lines into adjacent sectors.

Speaker 1

The defense business experienced continued softness across the product portfolio throughout the quarter. Management continued its focus on operational improvements and executed on additional cost cutting measures. In addition, the defense business continued to collaborate with its key customers with a goal of leveraging opportunities aligned with its growth initiatives. Subject to timing as delays in the conversion of these opportunities continued through the Q1 of 2024. The ability to recover in volumes in 2024 for each segment will remain subject to the ongoing challenges related to the continued inflation pressures and the ongoing global geopolitical challenges and the successful conversion of key opportunities.

Speaker 1

Having said that, we continue to view any such challenges as transient and we will be continuing to focus on our long term strategic plans. As was announced earlier this year, the company went through an in-depth review of corporate strategy and has established a bold new direction that will be executed on over the next few years. The resegmentation of the company's key business lines was the first step in narrowing focus on the ongoing key growth drivers for AirBoss. As such, the company will focus on growing the core Rubber Solutions segment by emphasizing rubber compounding as the main driver for sustainable growth and productivity and focusing on innovation in custom rubber compounding, while aiming to expand market share through organic and inorganic means. Additionally, there will be a purposeful enhancement of diversification through a broadening of product breadth, technological advancements and investments in specialty compound niches.

Speaker 1

AMP's growth strategy will be focused on diversifying and expanding its range of rubber molded products, while simultaneously narrowing the range of defense products through a renewed focus on core competencies. And as was recently announced, we will be undertaking a strategic review of all individual product lines currently manufactured and sold by the company in its manufactured product segment in an effort to better identify core versus non core business. Any result in divestitures, which may occur based on the results of this process, will be structured to enhance the speed of both deleveraging efforts as well as the execution of non organic growth opportunities for ARS. These efforts may additionally be enhanced with the monetization of real estate assets and the establishment of world class greenfield operations. Airbus will focus on these priorities while investing in core areas of the business to expand a solid foundation that will support long term growth.

Speaker 1

I will now pass the call over to Frank for the financial review. Frank?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. As a reminder, all dollar amounts presented today are in U. S. Dollars, except for dividend per share, which are in Canadian dollars. Percentage changes for Q1 of 2024 are compared to Q1 of 2023 unless otherwise stated.

Speaker 2

I also want to remind you that AirBoss now reports results under 2 segments, AirBoss Rubber Solutions and AirBoss Manufactured Products. To be respectful of your time today, I will aim to be brief in my summary of our Q1, twenty twenty four results. Starting from the top line, AirBoss' consolidated net sales for Q1 2024 were $103,500,000 a decrease of 11.6% from the prior year due to lower sales primarily at manufactured products and additional softness at Rubber Solutions. Consolidated gross profit for Q1 2024 decreased by 7,800,000 to 14,200,000 compared with Q1 2023. This decrease was driven primarily by lower volumes at manufactured products and more specifically in the defense business with additional softness experienced with the rubber molded products operations.

Speaker 2

Turning now to our individual segments, net sales in the Rubber Solutions segment for Q1 of 2024 were $65,500,000 a decrease of 3.1% compared to Q1 of 2023. Rubber Solutions experienced progressive traction over the prior quarter and saw volumes bounce back in Q1 of 2024. Volume was up 2.3% with increases in several sectors due to increased momentum in most sectors, specifically towards the end of the quarter. Gross profit within Rubber Solutions was $11,000,000 which was an increase of 27.9% from Q1 of 2023. This gross profit improvement was driven by the increased volume, the impacts of product mix and the management of controllable overhead.

Speaker 2

At manufactured products, net sales for Q1 of 2024 decreased by 26.2 percent to 42,300,000 dollars from $57,400,000 in Q1 of 2023. The reduction was primarily due to the decrease across most of the defense product lines in addition to lower volumes in the rubber molded products business, specifically in SUV and light truck platforms driven by economic headwinds and softness which impacted production schedules across certain OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in the quarter. Gross profit at manufactured products segment for Q1 2024 decreased to $3,100,000 from $13,300,000 in Q1 2023. This gross profit reduction was primarily the result of unfavorable volume and product mix in the defense products business in addition to volume in the rubber molded products operation, partially offset by operational cost improvements and reduced overhead costs. Free cash flow for Q1 of 2024 was negative 7,400,000 compared to positive 5,200,000 at the end of Q1 2023.

Speaker 2

During Q1 2024, the company invested 1,600,000 in capital equipment versus 600,000 in Q1 of 2023. The capital expenditures related to cost savings initiatives, growth initiatives and minor upgrades with rubber solutions and manufactured products. By the end of Q1 of 2024, our net debt balance was 97,600,000. We expect to fund the company's 2024 operating cash requirements including required working capital investments, capital expenditures and scheduled debt repayments from cash on hand, cash flow from operations and committed borrowing capacity. Our current revolving credit facility provides financing up to $150,000,000 Currently $108,300,000 is drawn against this credit facility.

Speaker 2

With that, I will pass it over to Gren for the Chairman's award winners and for closing remarks.

Operator

Every day at Airbus, there's inspirational work being done across all divisions and departments with team members going above and beyond to ensure our continued success. In 20 19, we created our Annual Chairman's Award Program to formally recognize the special efforts made by AirBoss employees. It is a peer to peer recognition program that has employees identify, recognize and appreciate a broad range of strong contributors who go above and beyond for Airbus. When selecting the Chairman's recipient, we ensure that we have strong representation of our Airbus employees by presenting an award to 1 peer nominated hourly employee and to 1 peer nominated salaried employee who have both shown exceptional dedication and commitment as they've gone above and beyond for Airbus. I'm pleased to announce that yet again, we've had great employee participation this year with a total of 294 employees nominated from across the organization and the selection of 13 divisional winners.

Operator

From these 13 divisional winners, there were 2 employees that stood out and best exemplified the Chairman Award attributes. I'm delighted to announce today that this year's winners are Richard Burnett, IT Manager from Acton Vale, Quebec and Ryan Price, Production Supervisor from Rock Hill, South Carolina. Richard Burnett, Ryan Price has been with AirBoss for 24 years and started as a general laborer. On 1st shift, Ryan was always the 1st person to start work and the last to leave. He is very patient with training, very knowledgeable the day to day operations in the plant, which continues to earn their respect to the employees on the floor.

Operator

Ryan honestly cares about the company, customers, and the people he works with every day. I would like to congratulate both Richard and Ryan on being the Chairman Award winners and recognize their efforts. They will both be receiving the 2023 Chairman Award Trophy, a cash award and a few other prizes to be given at a later date. On behalf of the Board of Directors and Shareholders, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our nominees and winners across the organization for their outstanding contributions over the last year. And with that, I will turn it over to the live portion for this year's shareholder and general meeting.

Operator

Thank you. We are making today's meeting available through both video and teleconference facility. Accordingly, I'd like to welcome everyone who's been able to join us today in one form or another. I am Gren Schoch, Chairman and Co CEO of Airbus of America Corp. Joining me today are Chris Bitsycakas, President and Co CEO Frank Cantile, CFO and Chris Viguel, EVP and General Counsel.

Operator

I would also like to introduce our Board of Directors who are participating electronically, Anita Antonucci, David Camilleri, Mary Matthews, Robert McLeish, Stephen Ryan and Alan Watson. For your information, we'll start the meeting by addressing the formal agenda matters. We will then follow that with a Q and A session where we would welcome questions from participants. In conducting the business of the meeting, I would appreciate your cooperation and allowing us to move efficiently through the agenda. In order to make the best use of our time, certain shareholders have been asked to move and second resolutions, which we'll consider at the meeting.

Operator

I will call on them at the appropriate time. I would now like to call this meeting to order. Chris Bitsakakis and myself will act as co chairs of the meeting and Chris Figuille will act as Secretary of the meeting. The Secretary has advised that the annual report containing the audited consolidated financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023 was mailed to the shareholders of the corporation on April 8, 2024. The notice of this meeting, the accompanying management information circular and form of proxy were also mailed to the shareholders of the corporation on April 8, 2024.

Operator

I directed the proof of service be annexed to the minutes of this meeting. Chris Bitsakakis, myself and CFO, Frank Antelli, will be available to respond to any questions concerning the financial statements during the general question period that follows the formal business. Before proceeding with the business of the meeting, I would like to take a moment to discuss the voting procedure. Each holder of a common share of the corporation is entitled to 1 vote for each common share held. There are 4 formal items of business to be dealt with today: a, to receive the annual report and financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023 B, to elect each of the 7 nominated electors to the Board for the ensuing year C, to reappoint the Corporation's auditors, KPMG LLP for the ensuing year and the authorization of the directors to fix the auditors' remuneration and lastly, to approve the unallocated awards under the 2015 Omnibus incentive plan, all as described in the management information circular of the corporation dated April 8, 2024.

Operator

With the consent of the meeting, representatives of Computershare Investor Services Inc, the corporation's registrar and transfer agent will act as scrutineers and report on the number of shareholders present in person and the number of shares represented in person or by proxy. I will now ask the Secretary to confirm quorum for this meeting.

Speaker 3

Mr. Chairman, I confirm we have at least 2 persons present holding or representing by proxy 25 percent of the eligible votes, which results in a quorum.

Operator

As a quorum is present, I declare this meeting properly constituted. I direct that the scrutineers report on the attendance be annexed to the minutes of this meeting. As a first item of formal business, I'd ask Frank Antilia, our CFO, to table Airbus' annual report to the shareholders, which includes the audited consolidated financial statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, together with the auditors report.

Speaker 2

Mr. Charbon, the Corporation's fiscal 2023 annual report is tabled.

Operator

Thank you, Frank. A copy of the 2023 annual report has been mailed to all shareholders who requested a copy. Copies can be found online under Airbus' profile atsedarplus.com. We will now move to the 2nd item of formal business, the election of 7 Directors to the Airbus Board of Director. Nominations have already been proposed by management in the proxy circular.

Operator

All 7 of our current directors have agreed to continue serving on the Board of Directors. Details about each of the director nominees are contained in this year's proxy circular. Shareholders are required to cast their votes for each individual director nominee rather than voting for the entire slate. The meeting is now open for the nomination for the election of 7 nominees. Morricetti, would you please nominate the individuals listed in the proxy Thank you.

Operator

Nadine, Chris, will you please second the nominations? Thank you. Are there any other nominations? I declare the nominations closed. Morris, may I have a resolution, please?

Operator

Nadine, will you second the resolution? Thank you. As you know, management solicited proxies for the business of today's meeting. On behalf of management, I've received proxies representing over a majority of votes cast for the election of each of the director nominees named in our proxy circular. Based on the proxy report received, greater than 95% of the shares voted were cast in favor of each of management's nominees.

Operator

Accordingly, along with myself, the following other 6 nominees have each been properly elected as Directors of AirBoss for the ensuing year: Anita Antonucci, David Camilleri, Mary Matthews, Robert McLeish, Stephen Ryan and Alan Watson. If any shareholder or proxy holder is interested in the exact number of votes cast for or withheld from each nominee, you can get the particulars after the meeting from the secretary. A press release and report on voting results indicated the detailed results indicating the detailed results of the vote on the election of the directors will be publicly filed after this meeting on SEDAR Plus. The next item of formal business is the reappointment of KPMG LLP as the auditors of the corporation and authorization of the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors. Morris, may I have a resolution please?

Speaker 4

Mr. Chairman, I move the following resolution.

Operator

Thank you. On behalf of management, I've received proxies representing over majority of votes cast for reappointment of KPMG LLP as the auditors of the corporation and the authorization of the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors. Based on the proxy report received, greater than 95% of the votes were cast in favor of the resolution. Accordingly, I declare it carried. The next item of formal business is the approval of the unallocated awards under the company's 2015 omnibus incentive plan for a further 3 year term as required by the TSX and the plan itself.

Operator

A copy of the plan was included in the indices to the information circular for this meeting. As a full explanation of this approval and the plan was set out in the information circular and was filed on SEDAR Plus, I will not repeat such information here. However, if there are any questions regarding this matter, they can be directed towards the Secretary at any time after the meeting. Morris, may I have a resolution to approve the unallocated awards under the 2015 omnibus incentive plan, please?

Speaker 4

Mr. Chairman, I move the following resolution. Whereas, 1, the Board of Directors of the company adopted on April 8, 2015, the 2015 Omnibus Incentive Plan, which does not have a fixed maximum number of common shares this year. 2, the shareholders of the company approved the 2015 omnibus plan by a majority of votes cast on May 14, 2015. And 3, the rules of the Toronto Stock Exchange provide that all unallocated options, rights or other entitlements under a security based compensation arrangement, which does not have a fixed number of maximum securities issuable by approved every 3 years.

Speaker 4

Be it hereby resolved as an ordinary resolution of the company that one, all unallocated awards under the 2015 omnibus plan are hereby approved and authorized 2, the company has the ability to continue granting awards under the 2015 omnibus plan until May 9, 2027, which is the date that is 3 years from the date of the shareholder meeting at which shareholder approval is being sought. And 3, any one or more director or officer of the company is authorized and directed on behalf of the company to take all necessary steps and proceedings to execute, deliver and file any and all declarations, agreements, documents and any other instruments and do all such acts and things, whether under corporate seal of the company or otherwise, that may be necessary or desirable to give effect to the foregoing resolution.

Operator

Nadine, will you second the resolution, please?

Speaker 3

Mr. Chairman, I second the resolution.

Operator

Thank you. On behalf of management, I received proxies representing over majority of votes cast for approval of the unallocated awards under the company's 2015 omnibus incentive plan for a further 3 year term. Based on the proxy report received, greater than 95% of the votes cast were in favor of the resolution. Accordingly, I can declare it carried. If there is no further business for this meeting, I will request a motion that the formal meeting be terminated.

Operator

Morris, would you please bring a motion to terminate the meeting?

Speaker 4

Mr. Chairman, I move that the meeting be terminated.

Operator

Thank you. Nadine, will you second?

Speaker 3

Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.

Operator

Thank you. All in favor, please raise your hands. Contrary, if any, I declare the motion carried and the formal business of the meeting concluded.

Speaker 1

Very good. We'll continue now with the management presentation. On behalf of the management team, I'm happy to present the highlights of our investor presentation, which will be posted to the website today if it hasn't been posted already. We'll just get this slideshow started. And if we can go to the 1st page, please.

Speaker 1

Very good. Thank you. Obviously, this first page are forward looking information disclaimers. There are certain elements of this presentation that do include forward looking information. And if you have time to read through the disclaimers, you can go through that today or at your leisure off of our website.

Speaker 1

Airbus has always been a pioneer of innovation technology. Over the last 30 years of growth, you can see here that through organic and inorganic efforts, we have built this company into a broad based company servicing multiple industries. And we service these industries through multiple customer Our 2 divisions or 2 segments, Airbus Rubber Solutions and Airbus Manufactured Products continue to innovate, drive efficiency and scale through our operations to be able to support the growth that we have experienced over the past 30 years. If you can go to the next slide please. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Our 2 segments support each other. Airbus Rubber Solutions provides compounded rubber, materials R and D and management services to Airbus manufactured products. And Airbus manufactured products through their growth in the industries that they serve can be a good vehicle for vertical integration that drives more sales through our multiple channels. Diversification for our business has always been a key strength. In 2023, our sales came in at 4 $26,000,000 with an adjusted EBITDA of $26,800,000 Our profit to shareholders was a negative $6,400,000 which was based on a goodwill write off of $26,600,000 dollars In our custom rubber compounding group Airbus Rubber Solutions, we continue to have £500,000,000 of production capacity.

Speaker 1

We have over 2,000 proprietary compounds. This is important to us because as we innovate, the proprietary nature of what we do is extremely important to be able to compete within the markets that we serve. The net sales at $248,000,000 $35,000,000 in gross profit was the was a good year for Airbus Rubber Solutions, although some softness in the Q4 impacted that somewhat. In Airbus manufactured products in 2023, we realized net sales of $202,000,000 and gross profit of $23,000,000 through our markets of automotive, non automotive and defense. In Airbus manufactured products, we're customized rubber based anti vibration noise reduction solutions for the automotive electric vehicle and heavy truck, industrial and defense industries.

Speaker 1

We have multiple domestic and offshore automakers and major Tier 1 and 2 suppliers to the global automotive market. On the defense product lines within Airbus manufactured products, we continue support industrial military grade protection for chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear threats. We continue to provide personal protective equipment for healthcare settings and we are also driving new innovation and technology for blast monitoring in the overall prevention of traumatic brain injury soldiers and route clearance solutions for military and law enforcement personnel. And that, as you read in our press release yesterday, we're quite excited about the award that we received recently on this particular product line of $45,000,000 and a total of $57,000,000 over the past 12 months. So this product line for the defense products is growing quite nicely.

Speaker 1

Airbus has always had consistent growth through multiple economic cycles. You can see from this chart that despite the ups and downs of different recessions and different concerns throughout the global economic conditions, Airbus continues to grow. Airbus also continues to outperform the industry. You can see from this chart as a baseline from 2,000 and a multiple of revenue from that baseline, Airbus continues to perform both the plastics and rubber industry and the defense capital goods in terms of overall baseline growth. One of our key values is our domestic manufacturing capacity.

Speaker 1

We are geographically positioned well to win U. S. Government contracts, particularly as made in America is a key factor in many of these products. We continue and have continued for many years to provide a quarterly dividend to our shareholders And as you can see, the current dividend rate as we announced yesterday at 0.035 through our press release yesterday. Our corporation continues to focus on sustainability.

Speaker 1

In 2022, we developed our ESG reporting practices and published our inaugural sustainability report. And in 2023, we published our 2nd sustainability report. And we have multiple initiatives underway to continue to expand this effort from our leadership team. In terms of innovation and execution, we continue to grow the Rubber business over the long term. We have the core drivers for sustainable growth and productivity.

Speaker 1

We're growing our market share through organic and inorganic means. We're expanding our capabilities. We have, over the past few years shifted to higher value black rubber, more white and color compounds high performance elastomers and we will continue to do so as in the coming years as it supports our long term plan for innovation growth through innovation. In terms of transforming the Rubber Business, our 100 percent ownership in Ace Elastomer has really given us access to higher margin color in specialty compounding markets. As you recall, in 2019, when we started up our first color compounding line and we gained market share immediately leveraging the technology group and our experience in the rubber industry.

Speaker 1

We were then able to really catapult that particular market share position that we have on the color side based on that acquisition of vaso elastomer, which has gone very well for us as we continue to grow that business, balanced on the efforts of, an excellent and hardworking team at ASO Lastomer. In manufactured products, we continue to build value with new solutions with our partners. We're focusing continuously on efficiency and innovation, and we continue to grow our access into non automotive sectors, both in defense and in other non automotive sectors. Also in manufactured products, we continue to win strategic contracts for the military as part of our growth in Airbus manufactured products. We're also strengthening our survivability platform.

Speaker 1

As you can see from the announcements last year, quite a few awards on military grade PPE and we continue to grow in that market, leveraging the strength of our rubber compounding group in the development of innovative materials that act as a protective barrier for soldiers that are putting themselves at harm and as well as 1st responder products that are currently being marketed. Our acquisition of Black Box Biometrics has really put us in a strong position as we continue to work with our military partners on finding ways to gauge and mitigate the health results of over exposure to blast. And we continue to work with all our military partners to drive that product through their long term plans. We have a driven and dedicated management team. Many of us are here today.

Speaker 1

And you can see through this chart, who we are. And as well, we have a very strong and supportive Board of Directors that we are excited to continue to work with as we go forward on the execution of our long term strategy. And with that, as we post this presentation to the website, be posting the appendices, which give a little bit more detailed information on the Q1 results specifically. And I encourage you to review those at your leisure. But in terms of Q1, as we posted in our press release yesterday, we're quite excited about the award of the Bandelier, the $45,000,000 award for Bandelier to a NATO partner nation and we continue to see great traction in this particular product line.

Speaker 1

In Q1, we were able to reduce our borrowings by an additional $11,100,000 after having a very good track record last year of also reducing And we're quite happy to put that to the and we're quite happy to put that to rest. We also amended our credit We also amended our credit facilities to replace the leverage and interest coverage ratios with minimum adjusted EBITDA and liquidity requirements. And what that does for us, it gives us a lot more flexibility as we start to roll out our long term strategic plan. And of course, we declared a dividend as was announced yesterday at 0.035. And with that, that draws to a conclusion, our presentation management presentation.

Speaker 1

And we will now open the floor to questions from anyone attending the meeting here in person. We have a microphone here at the front of the room. So if anybody would like to queue up and ask a question, you're more than welcome to.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Good morning. David O'Campbell, Cormark Securities. Chris, you continue to flag non automotive as an opportunity and that's been a theme for the last, call it, 2 or 3 years. So I guess I'm just curious how that revenue has trended over the last 2 or 3 years?

Speaker 5

And how does the margin profile compare between non automotive and automotive?

Speaker 1

Yes, that's a great question. We've had some very good success on the non automotive side. And as we said from the very beginning, the non automotive products that are out there can leverage our capabilities both on the rubber compound and the rubber molding side. However, they're normally smaller in volume, but higher in margin. And that's what we're seeing.

Speaker 1

We've had significant traction in construction products. We've had significant traction in heavy truck. But as you see these different awards coming in, because of the great size of the automotive business that we have, it appears small in relation to that, although our target is 50%. But already within that operation, we started producing military products as well that are traditional military products for our defense group product lines. And so, we are producing the rubber over boot now for the U.

Speaker 1

S. Military in our operation in the U. S. In our Detroit plants. And we are growing in the non automotive side.

Speaker 1

The margins are significantly higher, but the volumes are low. So we haven't reached that tipping point yet, where we can say where we can point to it and say, see what an impact it's having. Kind of similar to on the Airbus Rubber Solutions side, the specialty compounding is also higher margin, but it's lower volume. So in order to tip the needle, it takes quite a few of these success stories to kind of line up to make a big difference. But, we're relatively pleased with the traction we've gotten.

Speaker 1

We wish it could go a little bit faster, But again, when each of these awards are smaller in nature, it takes a lot of these singles, doubles and triples to really add up to move the needle on that target that we've always had for a fifty-fifty operations with auto and non auto. And we have prospects that we think can really help accelerate that. But it's probably too early to speak about them right now. But the program is going well, albeit it's going to take quite a few of these events to start to move the needle.

Speaker 5

Great. My second question is just on your restructuring in A and P. That's been ongoing for the last 1 or 2 quarters. Just curious where we are in that process? And once you're done your restructuring initiatives, do you expect this business to be EBITDA breakeven?

Speaker 5

And or does that require additional volumes to get there?

Speaker 1

Right. So for the restructuring that you're referring to, we did an initial restructuring late in 2023. That restructuring yielded significant savings and a reduction of our breakeven point at Airbus manufactured products, specifically on the Defense Group product lines. In terms of the resegmentation and combining the prior Airbus Defense Group segment with the prior Airbus Engineered Products segment, we worked throughout the Q1 to see what additional synergies were available there. And those were the additional restructuring efforts that we put in here, I think, during the month of April.

Speaker 1

And so that also took an additional reduction of our breakeven point, which is very positive news for us. So although we are we haven't given guidance yet for this year, our goal in this restructuring has always been for Airbus manufactured products in a scenario where the economic headwinds are really high to at least breakeven and with some new growth and new awards to be able to positively contribute to the overall corporation in a substantive way. We feel we've accomplished that now. We feel that the restructuring on the A and P side is basically behind us. And we're excited at least particularly with this new Bandelier award as we look at the second half of this year, starting to see the fruits of the added revenue from the Bandelier award, but also the lowering of the breakeven point.

Speaker 5

That's perfect. Thank you. I'll pass the mic over.

Speaker 6

It's Kevin from CIBC. Thanks for the presentation. Maybe just on the $45,000,000 award, just wondering, are you starting to see more opportunities on the defense side? There's obviously been a lot of money being thrown at increasing defense spending. It feels like it's taking a little bit of time for that money to maybe flow into orders.

Speaker 6

Is this a sign of maybe more things to come? Or just how are those conversations with that specific end market progressing here today?

Speaker 1

Yes, Kevin, for us, it's always been kind of important that the products that we provide are not the pointy the sharp pointy end of the spear, right? And these kinds of things are we've always focused on either protecting soldiers or protecting their or reinforcing their missions. And as such, I think with the conflicts that we see around the world, there's been a significant increase in the sharp and pointing and not so much in other things. And I think particularly coming out of the pandemic where governments spent so much money and you read as well as we do, do, the inability of certain governments to actually be able to find the budgeting to be able to handle certain things are focusing their resources on the most critical needs that they have. And as such, we have not seen a significant spike in soldier protection on the defense side.

Speaker 1

However, we are very encouraged by the Bandelier award. We are in constant conversations on multiple items. Many of them continue to be required by the militaries that we speak to. And it continues to get to the point where, yes, we want it. We're still trying to find funding for it because funding keeps getting moved around.

Speaker 1

So we have to be very patient. But certainly, I'd say this Bandelier award is a a real source of optimism for us that we see budgets starting to get past again. And we see some more of that Bendelier award with optimism that maybe we're getting over that hump now with the funding side that has put us into basically a 2 year holding pattern almost in a lot of our products that are we felt at the time and our customers felt at the time were a significant need and very close to being awarded.

Speaker 6

That's helpful color. Thank you. And maybe just my second question. I think in the presentation, it said volumes were up 2.3% in the quarter, but I might have caught you saying this as well that they improved through the quarters. It sounds like March might have ended better than the average.

Speaker 6

Just wondering how that did trend sequentially through those months and maybe how things look in Q2 here. And just overall, how your capacity utilization looks like? You have £500,000,000 of production capacity. Just where does that sit today in terms of actual throughput? Any color would be helpful.

Speaker 1

Yes, absolutely. So always when you're looking at Airbus Rubber Solutions, it's important to remember that the revenue line is significantly impacted by the price of raw material, right? So when you look at revenue, you have to keep that in mind, which is why we always prefer to use volume output as a more accurate indicator of the actual growth that's happening in the business. Because if raw materials double in price, our revenue line almost doubles in price, right? So you have to keep that sort of in the back of your mind because we have agreements with our customers that when raw material pricing goes up every month, we change our pricing.

Speaker 1

And when raw material pricing goes down, we also change our pricing. And that's why you have to keep that in mind. So we did see revenue growth. The quarter started off a little bit slow. As you recall, the end of Q4, we had a significant pullback from our customers that we were told they had built up their inventory and wanted to reduce inventory going over their year end.

Speaker 1

That continued on early on in the Q1. However, the rest of the quarter was relatively strong. Looking at Q2, we continue to see a variety of different headwinds for the Q2. At this point in time, we're not prepared to give any guidance on where we're at with that. But ARS continues to bring on new customers with significant volume growth.

Speaker 1

And we're hopeful that as some of these economic headwinds that we see depending on the industry that we're addressing occur, that the market share penetration and growth that we're getting starts to offset that. So we've seen early on in this re segmentation of the business. And as you recall, the compounding group that we had in Actonville, Quebec, which was dedicated to supporting the defense products, is now under the control and jurisdiction of Airbus Rubber Solutions. And we can already see the synergy there of greater cooperation on growing in the regions that they serve and acting as a backup for the regions that we serve. So we're still pretty optimistic that Rubber Solutions will continue to do well.

Speaker 1

However, it would be unfair to say that we don't see based on the high interest rates and different markets that we serve. And Kevin, you know a lot more about the auto industry than most people. Car inventories are up. And so you can see some of this trimming away on some and that has a bit of a domino effect. So we feel pretty good about where ARS is going to be for this year.

Speaker 1

We feel like we should be able to hit the budget that we had put in place. However, there will be some ups and downs on a month here and a month there as some of these transient issues

Operator

occur.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Tim James with TD Cowen. Thanks for the presentation this morning. My first question, Chris, I'm just wondering if you could give us an update on Blaskeige and what's required there in terms of moving that into a bigger contributor to company revenues and earnings?

Speaker 1

Well, in terms of blast gauge, we have developed our newest version of the blast gauge According to a specification that was requested to us by one of our key government partners. Blast gauge is the only blast monitoring device that has been fielded for many, many years, both through Afghanistan, Iraq and other places like that. So we feel really good about the technology of the product. We've always felt good about it. We've always felt that it was a very important need, for soldier protection.

Speaker 1

A couple years ago, there was a bipartisan committee, of Congress that insisted that the military return to Congress with a plan to, gauge up as they called it. All of the soldiers in the military, whether that are exposed to blast and almost everybody is because even through basic training and everything else that that that the soldiers go through. They'll be exposed to they'll have some sort of level of blast exposure. Traumatic brain injury every day, gets more and more attention. If you haven't been following, there's been a series of articles in the New York Times, including one over the weekend last weekend on the importance of monitoring traumatic brain injury.

Speaker 1

And so we've stayed in close contact with our key partners. Again, back to an earlier question, funding has always been kind of floating around in this particular area. And we believe now with the attention that it's getting, there will be a higher priority on being able to get some funding to get blast gauge off the ground. So we think we're getting closer to that event. We've given dates in the past of when our customers have told us this is the date where we're going to be, you know, finding a way to get this on groups of soldiers.

Speaker 1

And, instead of doing that because it's not always in their hands in terms of the funding, I'd have to say that we're very optimistic that in the near to midterm, we're going to be able to see some sort of good news on the military's interest in gauging up their soldiers the way they've been talking about for the past few years.

Speaker 7

Is there any update on the sort of the competitive situation with blast gauge? I know obviously that the Airbus product is farthest along and you've been in field testing, correct me if I'm wrong, there was one other sort of competitor that had their hands up and we're trying to put something into the market there. Is there any change on that front in your relative position?

Speaker 1

No, we do have another competitor. I'm not too familiar with their product, but I assume that it's a capable product. But I don't have any data on how it compares to ours. I know that in any case like this, our customers always prefer to have a competition so that they have something to compare to. And we have submitted our product for testing against theirs in this in a variety of circumstances.

Speaker 1

We are not aware of any change to that. We are still awaiting feedback from those customers. My understanding is that the feedback has been slowed down because of a lack of clarity on the funding. And so the actual full head to head testing and everything else that they need to do to make a decision in this case has been slowed down by the lack of funding. My understanding is also that that funding has now been opened up a little bit.

Speaker 1

So we should see some

Speaker 7

rubber compounding, you mentioned about bringing on new customers, you're very pleased with that. Can you talk about the end markets, your legacy customers, what business lines they're in, where you're seeing strength in terms of end markets and where maybe there is some pullback because I assume if you're bringing new customers on, some of your legacy customers, maybe your volumes are down a bit. Just talk about sort of where the strengths and weaknesses are in terms of the end markets that your customers ultimately service?

Speaker 1

The biggest weakness that we've seen for the past year is on the tolling side, which is related to the open capacity that the big tire companies are seeing. And so, as they in source some of that some of their rubber requirements when they have open capacity, that then impacts us negatively. So I'd say that's certainly the biggest negative that we've seen. We've seen ups and downs in other markets. For example, mining as an example, is still going fairly strongly.

Speaker 1

We have seen more kind of quarter by quarter, month by month ups and downs in each of these markets. The OTR, which is off the road, went through sort of a soft phase last quarter, Q4 of last year, and it now seems to be rebounding. So we've seen these kind of ups and downs that are segment specific. But generally speaking, the only sort of large scale negative that has remained negative has been on that on the big tire side.

Speaker 7

You mentioned the new customers that are coming on stream, you're pleased with that. What is it a way to characterize the markets that they're in? Or is it a variety of different end markets that they're in?

Speaker 1

It's definitely a variety of markets that they're in. But we have certainly been able to gain quite a bit of market share on the automotive side, both on the OEM and on the replacement side. So, we've seen quite a bit of traction and growth, particularly the Q1 of this year, on some automotive customers with which generally take longer to validate, because they have to go through full approvals and testing and it's sort of a longer cycle. So, we've been at that for a couple of years. And our intention was always to increase our penetration into the rubber compounding space that supports automotive.

Speaker 1

It is generally higher technology, which supports our innovation theme. But it's also the type of customer that ends up being very sticky because once you get approvals and you're in there, you may have some ups and downs here and there. But generally speaking, it's a good business for us to be in. And we've had some significant automotive companies, higher end automotive companies, automotive compounds rely on single pass mixing versus multiple pass mixing. And why that's important is because we can generate revenue and margin by going one time through the mixer.

Speaker 1

So, we end up getting better revenue with lower capacity utilization. So that's been an important target for us. And I'm really pleased with the work that the ARS team has done, and it's now coming to fruition here in Q1, and we can we expect to see that to continue to grow. Actually, if I can just get

Speaker 7

one more question in. My sense is there aren't any particular capital expenditure requirements that are above or significantly above maintenance as you look out over the next 2 or 3 years, you've got the capacity. Is that a fair comment? Or is there anything on the horizon that where you're like you may need to spend a reasonable amount of capital above and beyond just normal maintenance?

Speaker 1

No, I mean, if you go back to like 2018, 2019 early 2020, we really did a lot to expand capacity, to add automation, to do all the things that were lacking for what we felt was many years before that. So, we doubled the capacity of our Scotland Neck facility, and we still have significant open capacity available there for black rubber compounding. We still have open capacity on the color and specialty side here in Kitchener, Ontario. And the acquisition of ace elastomer, one of the benefits that we've seen there is with our ability to help through automation and technology, we've been able to increase capacity at aselastomer without necessarily adding CapEx equipment. And so that's been a significant growth area for us.

Speaker 1

And also in our Airbus manufactured product segment, as you recall, we've been on a 2 or 3 year sort of plan to replace a lot of the existing molding machines that were there that were over 30 years old with brand new state of the art equipment. Many of those machines we've shown a 42% improvement in cycle time. So again, we're getting more efficient. We're reducing our overall cost to make our products there. And we're replacing machines that were fully utilized with a machine that is 42% quicker.

Speaker 1

So, that adds capacity without necessarily adding for the sake of adding capacity. So, I think we're in a good position, with where our CapEx plan is now. We have more than enough availability to continue to support our growth with the existing capacity that we have. And we have, the capability to, bring in new CapEx requirements that have a strong payback and we're able to do that. As you recall, Tim, I think when we did the tour of Kitchener, we had installed a fully robotic automated chemical weighing equipment that used to be hand weighed on the small ingredients.

Speaker 1

That was a big success for us. Kitchener is a really big plant. So what we did this year is, we acquired a new machine, significantly larger, so that we could handle more of the requirements of Kitchener on that one machine. And the smaller machine that was so successful for us is being dismantled and reassembled in our Scotland Neck operation. So we'll be able to take that technology and that innovation and that efficiency savings into Scotland Neck as well here in the next couple of quarters.

Speaker 1

So, nowhere we have capacity to grow. We have financial capacity to fund items that we think are very important for the ongoing success of the business. And so we're feeling pretty good about that. Thank you. Floor here today?

Operator

Sorry? Any other questions? So

Speaker 1

we'll now open the floor to any questions that could be queued up online. On. On. On. A conclusion.

Speaker 3

Chris, we do have several questions from the website. I'll read them out so we can address them now. Okay. So the first question is, are there any updates on Husky deliveries and the delays that we've previously discussed?

Speaker 1

We continue to engage with our partners on that Husky product line. And there is significant both need and desire to bring the Husky into a variety of locations. And we continue to engage both directly with those customers and indirectly through other support nations. And at this point, we don't have any update on that, but we continue to work on that.

Speaker 3

Okay, Chris. The next question, it's a 3 parter. I'm just going to read it out loud. How is onboarding of new clients, expectations for the rest of the year, margins in Q1, how can they be improved going forward?

Speaker 1

Okay. So on boarding of new customers has been going very well at Airbus Rubber Solutions. We had some significant growth in at the beginning of the year, we had targeted 23 new customers to bring on board, a few of them fairly significant, many of them sort of smaller and more specialty in nature. The significant large scale ones have all been executed on at some point in the latter part of the Q1. So we expect some good growth on the new customers at ARS going forward.

Speaker 1

The next question was what, Chris?

Operator

Part 2.

Speaker 3

Part 2 was expectations for the rest of the year.

Speaker 1

Yes. So we have not given guidance for the rest of the year. We are talking internally about how we go about doing that effectively. One of the concerns we had was whether because we were so close to that Bandelier award, and it's a fairly important element of our plan for this year. And given that that's just occurred, we are going to be looking at what the impacts are and seeing at some point in the near future to be able to give some guidance on that.

Speaker 3

And the last part was, can margins be improved for the remainder of the year?

Speaker 1

Yes. I think if you look at Airbus Rubber Solutions, you can see how the margins have improved significantly. If you look at the percent EBITDA as an example, you can see a 4% or 5% increase in our margins at ARS. And there's a lot of reasons for that, part of which are continued focus on the specialty side, part of which is the onboarding of new customers, particularly single pass customers, which will generally drive a higher sort of higher innovative material, but also a higher margin because of that. So you see that improvement there.

Speaker 1

In terms of Airbus manufactured products, we renegotiated all our contracts on the automotive side last year or a year and a bit ago. And that's been a significant improvement in our margins. The defense product lines, the individual margins for the product lines that we have are quite strong. However, this new resegmentation, the combination of the groups and the ability to kind of share brings that overhead structure down, which then when you look at it on a bottom line perspective, really helps that margin profile. So I can assure the person that put in the question and all of our shareholders that margin improvement is something that we continue to drive in every single one of our businesses.

Speaker 1

We're seeing some good traction. However, sometimes it's hard see it on the bottom line when revenue comes down, but that's the bad news. The good news is when revenue returns, it comes back at a stronger EBITDA percent, which is what we're really driving for.

Speaker 3

Chris, just one more additional question. I think you've already addressed this, but the shareholders asking if you can clarify what quantum of dividend was declared yesterday.

Speaker 1

Well, it's €0.035 is that the per common share?

Speaker 6

That's what they were

Operator

looking for. $0.35

Speaker 1

Yes, well yeah, dollars 0.035 per common share. Well, given that there are no more questions, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking time to attend this meeting both in person and online. I understand we did have some issues with one of the call in numbers. We apologize for that technical difficulty, and we'll do our utmost in the future to make sure that those types of technical glitches don't rear their ugly head. But I guess in this world of technology, sometimes these things happen.

Speaker 1

Thank you very much, everyone, and have a great rest of your week and rest of your day.

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Earnings Conference Call
AirBoss of America Q1 & AGM 2024
00:00 / 00:00