RBC Bearings Q1 2025 Earnings Results & Report

RBC Bearings EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.54
• Consensus EPS: $2.21
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.33
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.98
• EPS Beat Rate: 7 of last 8 quarters

RBC Bearings Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $406.30 million
• Expected Revenue: $416.65 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$10.35 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +5.00%

RBC Bearings (NYSE:RBC) is a manufacturer of highly engineered bearing and motion-control products. Founded in 1919 and headquartered in Oxford, Connecticut, the company serves original equipment manufacturers and aftermarket customers that require components designed for demanding operating environments.

Its product portfolio includes plain bearings, roller bearings, ball bearings, rod ends, spherical bearings, thrust bearings, and related precision components. These products are used in applications involving load support, friction reduction, positioning, and motion control across aerospace and defense, industrial equipment, construction, transportation, energy, and other specialized markets.

RBC Bearings sells its products through a combination of direct sales, distributors, and customer-specific manufacturing programs. The company serves customers in North America and international markets, with manufacturing and distribution activities supported by operations in the United States and other regions. Michael J. Hartnett has served as the company’s president and chief executive officer.

RBC Bearings Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• RBC Bearings reported fiscal Q1 sales of $406.3 million, up 5% year-over-year, powered by Aerospace & Defense growth of 23.7% (defense up 38.1%) while Industrial sales contracted 3.5%.
• Adjusted gross margin expanded to 45.3% of sales (up nearly 200 bps) and adjusted EBITDA margin reached a record 33%, driving adjusted EPS of $2.54 (a 19.2% increase year-over-year).
• The company generated net operating cash flow of $97.4 million (+57.9%) and free cash flow of $88.4 million (144% conversion), used $60 million to reduce debt and achieved a net leverage ratio of ~2.1×.
• Industrial end markets were weighed down by softness in oil & gas and semiconductor machinery aftermarket, leading to a 3.5% revenue decline, with management forecasting a rebound in the second half of fiscal 2025.
• Looking ahead, RBC Bearings expects sustained strength in Aerospace & Defense, an Industrial recovery in H2, and is expanding production capacity and workforce to support additional demand.

Presentation

[Operator]

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Rob Moffatt, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Rob Moffatt, Director of Investor Relations at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for RBC Bearings' fiscal first quarter 2025 earnings call. I'm Rob Moffatt, Director of Investor Relations. And with me on the call today are Dr. Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer; Daniel Bergeron, Director, Vice President, and Chief Operating Officer; and Rob Sullivan, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before beginning today's call, let me remind you that some of the statements made today will be forward-looking and are made under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those projected or implied due to a variety of factors.

[Rob Moffatt, Director of Investor Relations at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

We refer to RBC Bearings' recent filings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact the company's future operating results and financial condition. These factors are also described in greater detail in the press release and on the company's website.

[Rob Moffatt, Director of Investor Relations at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

In addition, reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial information is included as part of the release and is available on the company's website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dr. Hartnett.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Thank you, Rob, and good morning to everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm going to start today's call with a quick review of our quarter and fiscal year and hand it over to Rob for some detailed color on the numbers. Then I'll finish with some high-level thoughts on the industry, RBC's positioning, and some, in our fiscal 2025 outlook. First quarter sales came in at $406.3 million, a 5% increase over last year. Strong performance from our aerospace and defense sector showed a 23.7% expansion, where our industrial business contracted slightly at 3.5%. In aerospace and defense, sales expanded approximately $30 million quarter to quarter, year-over-year, with $149.1 million, the quarterly result. The defense sector led with a 38.1% expansion rate. Unquestionably, we can expect continued strong showings from our A&D sector through the balance of the year.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

On the industrial side, we held our own against our peers, showing a small contraction of 3.5% in sales. Sales were $257.2 million. Weakened sector performance was seen in oil and gas, semiconductor machinery, and some general industrial markets. We currently expect and plan for these markets to strengthen in the second half of the year. Adjusted gross margin for the quarter came in at $184 million, 45.3% of sales, and almost two full percentage points above last year. Clearly, our manufacturing plants are executing extremely well. We are operating well within our sweet spot in this regard, and many completed synergies and improvement projects contributed to this performance. Still, many more productive concepts and plans are in the breach and/or active today, and these are very productive and promising areas for us to prospect.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

I'd like to acknowledge and thank our teams for this quarter's performance. Clearly, it is they who are the reason for RBC's continued successes. As a result, adjusted net income was $2.54 a share, and adjusted EBITDA was 33% of revenues. Obviously, we're very pleased with this performance, and we really can't think of a better way to start our fiscal year. Net cash provided by the operating activities was $97.4 million versus $61.7 million last year, a 57.9% increase. This allowed us to reduce debt another $60 million during the period, bringing the EBITDA to net debt ratio to approximately 2.1 times another sweet spot. Overall, we expect more of the same performance from the aerospace and defense group through the year-end. Some ups and downs in this regard as a result of normal seasonal impacts of holidays, vacations, and supply chain.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

On the industrial side, we are planning to see strengthening in the second half of the year and are setting our plans today accordingly. RBC is well positioned to support additional demand from both industrial and aerospace defense customers as well as space customers. We have the production capacity, the trained and skilled workforce in place, and are in the process of augmenting plant capacities to accommodate additional business awards. I'll now turn the call over to Rob for more details on our financial performance.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Thank you, Mike. As Dr. Hartnett indicated, this was another strong quarter for RBC. Total sales growth of 5% in the quarter was surpassed by adjusted EBITDA growth of 11.3% and adjusted EPS growth of 19.2%. Along with that, we had free cash flow growth of 61% year-over-year. This was driven in large part by strong gross margin expansion, with first quarter gross margin as a percentage of sales coming in at 45.3% and expansion of roughly 190 basis points year-over-year. The two biggest drivers here continue to be the ongoing tailwinds from Dodge synergies and increased utilization of our aerospace manufacturing assets. We also saw tailwinds from strong plant efficiency expedites in a favorable mix. On the SG&A line, we continue to make investments in our future growth.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

This includes sales force additions to support the international expansion that we have highlighted as part of our Dodge strategy and the resources needed to support that growth, including IT infrastructure and back office support. With that said, the rate of growth on the SG&A line moderated versus the year-ago period, and we were able to extract a modest amount of leverage this quarter. Going forward, we expect SG&A as a percentage of sales to increase in Q2 and Q3 before normalizing in Q4. This led to adjusted EBITDA of $134 million this quarter, up 11.3% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 33%, which is up almost 190 basis points versus last year's 31.1%. The EBITDA margin is a new record for RBC, eclipsing our recent peak of 31.7% in the second quarter of fiscal 2024.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

The achievement of this milestone was a multifaceted effort, with credit being deserved across multiple layers of the company, including the Dodge team for their efforts in extracting synergies, and to our operations and plant management teams for running at very high levels of plant efficiency during the quarter. Interest expense in the quarter was $17.2 million. This was down 16% year-over-year, reflecting the ongoing repayment of our term loan. The tax rate in our adjusted EPS calculation was 22.4%, a moderate year-over-year headwind versus last year's 22%. Altogether, this led to adjusted diluted EPS of $2.54, representing 19.2% year-over-year growth, an impressive result on revenue growth of 5%. In terms of cash, free cash flow of $88.4 million ran at a 144% conversion rate and grew 61% on a year-over-year basis. This was fueled by strong net income growth and improved working capital performance.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

As usual, we used a meaningful portion of the cash generated to continue to pay down our term loan. We repaid $60 million of the loan this quarter and continue to expect to repay $275 million-$300 million total for the year. The balance on the term loan at the end of the quarter was $615 million, leaving net debt at $1.05 billion and trailing net leverage of 2.1x. We continue to expect trailing net leverage to be well below the 2x mark exiting the fiscal year, leaving ample room for a return to M&A should the right deal come across our path. As a reminder, our Series A Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock is expected to automatically convert on October 15th, 2024.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Using Q1 results as an approximation, the net impact of this conversion is expected to be slightly accretive to earnings per share, assuming conversion at the current share price. It'll be more meaningfully accretive, however, to free cash flow, as the conversion will remove the cash dividend payment, reducing our future total cash outlays by approximately $23 million on an annualized basis. This is roughly 9.5% of fiscal 2024's total free cash flow. In closing, this was another strong quarter for RBC. We remained focused on leveraging our core strengths in engineering, manufacturing, and product development to drive organic and organic inorganic growth, continued margin excellence, and high levels of free cash flow conversion. With that, operator, please open the call for Q&A.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the queue. You may press Star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. And our first question is from the line of Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

[Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, good morning, everyone.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Morning, Kristine.

[Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

You know, with industrial end market kind of starting to decline here, can you provide more context in detail about what you're seeing in the different end markets and exactly how far away we are from a trough and what we'd have to see to see improvement? Because it seems like, you know, the issue in the quarter is just a little bit of weakness in the top line. But that said, I mean, you know, with a 45% gross margin for the business, that's still pretty incredible performance.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. Well, you know, when we're looking at the industrial markets, Kristine, there's a few things that, where we saw, you know, a substantial amount of softness, and we've seen that continued for almost 12 months now. And that's in semicon and oil and gas. And on the semicon

[Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Hello? I think the line dropped.

[Operator]

Hi, gentlemen. This is ladies and gentlemen. This is the operator. Please stand by. We're experiencing technical difficulties. We'll resume momentarily. Please remain on the line, ladies and gentlemen. Our call will resume momentarily. Please remain on the line. Our conference will resume momentarily.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, please continue to stand by. The event will resume momentarily. Again, please continue to stand by. The event will resume momentarily. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your patience. Please continue to stand by. The event will resume momentarily. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Gentlemen, you may continue. Kristine, please confirm your questions.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Where did I lose you, Kristine?

[Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Mike, you were talking about semiconductors is where you've seen the weakness in oil and gas, and that's where the line dropped off.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. Okay. So those are the two majors. The oil and gas is sort of a—we have a major customer. We had a planning problem and bought too much a year ago, and now is sort of liquidating that position. We expect him to get better over the as the year progresses. And the rest of the business, you know, there's a slight downward bias on the rest of the markets. Some positive, some negative, but overall a bias down.

[Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Great. And just to follow up in terms of, you know, where we're seeing the weakness, are these mostly on new builds, or was the slowdown in buying also in the aftermarket if there was a little bit of an overage in buying before?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. I think it's, by and large, a slowdown in the aftermarket. You know, in the various industrial sectors that support the aftermarket.

[Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

I see. And then as you look at the recovery for each of these end markets, in which quarter do you think industrial revenue could potentially trough? And do you have any visibility into that?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

If I had the visibility, I would probably know, you know, what stocks to buy and which stocks to sell, right? But I don't have that kind of visibility. What we do have is economic models that sort of give us general overall direction. And those economic models are saying have been telling us that, you know, it's flat through our third quarter and very strong in our last quarter. And that's sort of how we're, you know, piloting the ship today.

[Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Well, great. Thank you for the call, or I'll get back in queue. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just to stay on industrial, I guess, the quarterly results on revenue came up short of your guidance. Was that the industrial weakness the biggest driver of that delta, or did anything else kind of materialize?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

No, that was the biggest driver. It's just, you know, it's, it's all about, you know, consumption rates and industrial consumption rates. Our estimates of those rates at the beginning of the quarter and the actual consumption that we see during the quarter creates the variance.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

Got it. Got it. Do you have, you know, that, I guess, ever since the acquisition of Dodge and, you know, the amount of industrial revenues that go through aftermarket distribution now is pretty, pretty sizable at the at the company level. I mean, do you have the level of visibility into the distributors to know if there's really gonna be a more pronounced destocking in, in any of these industrial sectors, or, you know, do you even have sort of min max thresholds where you, you have, you know, a certain base level of demand that you're shipping to in, in the industrial channels?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Well, we have, you know, we have probably the same information that you have. I mean, you know, some of these are public companies, and they publish quite detailed information on what their situation is. And basically, I don't think there's any, you know, much destocking going on. I think part of the year-to-year comp delta there was that, a year ago, we were still benefiting from a recovering supply chain and cleaning up backlog. You know, those are products that have been on the order book for an extended period of time. But as a result of supply chain difficulties, we couldn't complete those orders. And so, last year, we probably benefited from some number that might be as high as $10 million of that backlog reduction.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

This year, we, you know, supply chain is normal, and so we're just, you know, living on the, you know, economic consumption rate.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

Got it.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

As is our distributors. I mean, I don't think there's any serious destocking going on anywhere.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

Okay. Do you think as you look out for the remainder of 2025, I mean, you had a tough comp year-over-year in the first quarter for industrial, but they certainly get easier. Do you think industrial grows for fiscal 2025, or do you think it's gonna be, you know, sort of low single-digit kind of pressure all year?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

You know, our plan today has it growing.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

Okay.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

And, you know, that's, you know, that's, we're expecting, as I said, a recovery in, some recovery in semicon. We're expecting a milder recovery in oil and gas. And then the rest of it is about the, you know.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

But I asked for it.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Some industrial economic consumption rate.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

Okay. Okay. Got it. And then just real quickly, and then I'll jump off here. Any more detail on the year-over-year growth rates by channel and aerospace, aero OEM, aftermarket distribution? I think you called out defense already.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. I think Rob can give you those. He's looking at it now, so I'll turn the call over to Rob.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. They were very consistent. Like, they were both, you know, right around that 23.7% for OEM, 23.9% for distribution. So very consistent.

[Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities]

Okay. Okay. Perfect. All right, guys. I'll, I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Pete Skibitski with Alembic Global Advisors. Please proceed with your questions.

[Pete Skibitski, Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at Alembic Global Advisors]

Hey, good morning, guys. Nice performance.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Good afternoon.

[Pete Skibitski, Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at Alembic Global Advisors]

Hey, Mike, just on, you know, the torque and growth in defense, I think you said 38%. Was there, you know, a few programs that are helping to drive that, or, you know, 'cause you're just growing just so much above the market, above all the OEMs. So I'm just wondering if you could give us more color on what's driving that. It's like the fourth quarter in a row of that type of really strong growth. And I don't know if you could talk about pricing at all in terms of, you know, pricing maybe finally catching up with past inflation 'cause I know you're on a lot of LTAs as well. So just if you could comment there.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. And just to get the pricing thing out of the way, you know, we're not seeing—I don't think we're seeing any benefit from that right now. You know, a lot of our contracts roll over in 2025 and 2026. So, you know, we're really still living with prices that were probably set in 2021, maybe 2020, maybe 2019. So that's basically, you know, that's headwind for us. But it there are several major programs that we're involved with right now that are gonna continue to drive that kind of expansion. And it's, I think the year-to-year comps will become more difficult because this started about a year ago.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

But when you talk about, you know, the need to build submarines, that's not going away for, you know, five or 10 years, probably 10 years. That's gonna be very demanding on, on us. Missiles, demanding Joint Strike Fighter, demanding long-range bomber, demanding, so there's just a lot of really big programs that we're working on. And also the cancellation of the FARA program for the Scout helicopter that impacted Bell and Lockheed. As a result, benefited the other ships that were on tremendously because, you know, the other ships were sort of in, to some extent, a hiatus, like the CH-47, the Apache, the Black Hawk. Those are, you know, major important platforms for us. And the rest of the world didn't know whether they could buy those platforms or not based upon where the, where the DOD money was heading.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

That environment has cleared, and there's a lot of interest, foreign interest in those platforms. So, you know, we're just, it's kind of a perfect storm for us on the defense side.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. Okay. I mean, it makes sense. Just one follow-up for me, maybe, maybe on the commercial side. It sounds like Boeing is, is at about on the on the max, they're at about 25 per month now in June and July. Can you guys just remind us where you were over the past couple of quarters? I think they've been maintaining you like in the 30s or so. Does that sound about right?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. That sounds about right. I think our planning now is probably at a 33 rate. Although they've indicated they'll be at 38 by the end of the year, and the new CEO has agreed with that. I hope when he shows up at his office, he agrees with it even further. But, you know, so yeah, I think we have a very modest expectation, you know, built into our planning, with regard to Boeing demand. And that seems to be the way it's playing out.

[Pete Skibitski, Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at Alembic Global Advisors]

Yeah. And if they make that 38 rate by the end of the year, I imagine you could potentially accelerate, I guess, comps, you know, into fiscal 2026, it sounds like.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. Well, you know, I think they've got to get, you know, the FAA to approve, you know, a step up beyond 38, assuming they can get to 38. And so, you know, obviously, our parts, for the most part, have to be available 6 months ahead of, that's our planning cycle, ahead of the aircraft assembly rates. So, you know, that's kind of moved April into October, on the 38 rate. So we should be really, really conservative, using a 33 planning rate.

[Pete Skibitski, Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at Alembic Global Advisors]

Right. Right. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yep.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Jordan Lyonnais with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.

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

Hey, good morning. On M&A, could you guys give any color on deals in the pipe, what you're seeing, any changes in size or scope, into if you're looking at anything to get more capacity, if the A&D side keeps growing at this rate?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Well, you know, I think we're seeing A&D like companies coming to market. And we're, you know, investigating the fit with RBC. We have really nothing to report at this point. Obviously, if one of those companies does come to market, they'll likely come to market with their own capacity. So that probably won't tax ours. But there's just a lot going on in the A&D world, and we're very pleased with our growth in that sector and the outlook in that sector for the next several years. So we're being, you know, cautious and conservative about what we take on.

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

Got it. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Steve Barger with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Thanks. Hey, Mike, seeing gross margin above 45% with industrial down 3.5% is great performance.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Thank you.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Was that all mix in aerospace? Yeah, sure. You earned it. What was that all mix in aerospace, or was there something unusual in there?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

No. You know, aerospace contributed. It, you know, its margin is improving. I think it's, as I said, we have a lot of contracts that we're working our way through that we're inked in 2019, 2020, and 2021, that are a little bit of a headwind. We're becoming more efficient in the execution of those contracts just because there's more volume and there's more absorption as a result of that. We have also, you know, better methods and a little better capitalization here and there to execute some of those designs. So, I would say it was very solid performance on the industrial side that really, really carried the day.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

So industrial margins were up even against -3.5% organic?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yes. That's, that's right.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

And what in industrial drove that? 'Cause that's a pretty big absorption headwind to overcome, isn't it? Like, what, what was in mix that made that so rich?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Well, you know, we've been talking about synergies for a long time, and we're starting to see it. You know, they did have a favorable mix this quarter. I can't say that we're gonna see margins like that forever, but we saw it in the first quarter. You know, I think the neighborhood that we'll probably end up living in is more like 44% when the year's all done. But we'll see. That's hard to predict. So, you know, there's a lot of synergies that we're going on. Mix was favorable. Plant efficiencies were absolutely better. There's no question about that. I mean, they're operating in their sweet spot. And we've had methods improvements. And we've had improvements in supply chain cost structure.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

So, you know, everybody sort of has a role when they come to work in the morning and a little piece of each one of these issues. And, you know, cumulatively, it makes a difference.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

So, I guess you're guiding fiscal 2Q gross margin down 1 or 200 basis points against what is obviously a tough comp. But is there any specific thing causing that sequential decrease?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

I mean, I think we have fewer production days in Q2 and Q3. You know, that's been pretty consistent over time. So you have a little bit of a headwind there. And then you couple that with the favorable mix we had in the first quarter, it just adds up to, you know, this is where we're seeing things in Q2.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

The right way to look at it.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Got it.

[Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

It's probably more on a year-over-year basis, right? And, and you'll notice that the range encapsulates some expansion on a year.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Understood. Then on the revenue side, you know, aerospace is up 24% against a 21% comp. You talked about all the things that are going right there. Do you expect 20%-plus growth again in 2Q?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

You know, we're not planning for it, but I can't say that it won't happen.

[Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Well, I guess the question then is, you know, you expect industrial to recover in the back half. Do you think that's up sequentially from a revenue standpoint, or is that more likely down given some of the softness that you're seeing right now?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. That's more likely down.

[Pete Skibitski, Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at Alembic Global Advisors]

Understood. All right. Thanks very much.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yep.

[Operator]

Our next question is from the line of Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.

[Vivek Srivastava, VP at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks. This is Vivek Srivastava on for Joe. I just want to start with a more long-term question. Your EBITDA margin this quarter, 32.9%, the highest we've seen. You've previously talked about mid-30s long-term EBITDA margin, which is not far away from where you are today. So just wondering what kind of updated long-term margins you have your eyes set on and just how to think about the margin improvement path from here once the industrial businesses do start inflecting positively.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

You know, we're thrilled with the 33% that we achieved this year. You know, we're far ahead, you know, coming out of the gate of what we talked about in Q1. We talked about, you know, where we're seeing gross margins in Q2. You know, our mission is to continue to squeeze the lemon to expand margin every quarter as best to our ability. So we're not, you know, we're not looking to put out long-term guidance, but we are telling you that we're continuing to strive, seek out that EBITDA margin. And I think, you know, we have opportunities in different pockets to do so.

[Vivek Srivastava, VP at Goldman Sachs]

That's helpful. Maybe just a follow-up on that. As your margin continues to improve, industrial growth, your long-term target probably close to two times GDP. Is reinvesting within the industrial business something that could potentially accelerate a bit more from here to return to that two times GDP, growth target?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Can you clarify? I'm sorry.

[Vivek Srivastava, VP at Goldman Sachs]

Yeah. Just, given you're getting such strong margins right now, will reinvesting back in the business for growth be something that could potentially accelerate from here on?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Well, I think those are two different things. We're reinvesting in the industrial business, for cost reasons. In other words, we're trying to reduce our cost of sales by putting in capital equipment that will make our plants more efficient and incorporate manufacturing processes that we don't have in-house today and are very expensive to buy from outside. So, that's ongoing, and we're making not insubstantial investments in those kinds of machinery. And so that's why we're reasonably confident that that'll accrue to gross margin, over time. In terms of growth, you know, the industrial business on an annual run rate now is probably running over $1 billion.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

So in order to really, you know, impact that kind of number, it to get the internal growth mechanism performing at a measurable level requires some pretty big projects. And ultimately, and so we have our eye on some pretty big projects, but ultimately, those bigger projects take time to implement. And so we've just got to work through that. And that's sort of ongoing right now.

[Vivek Srivastava, VP at Goldman Sachs]

That's, that's very helpful, [audio distortion]. Thanks for that. Maybe one last question from me. Just on the backlog, noticed that in the press release, you provided backlog beyond 12 months, but we didn't see backlog due within 12 months. Just wanted to understand the rationale behind that and just any color on the backlog due within 12 months.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Yeah. We, you know, we made a strategic decision and communicated last quarter that from here on out, we were just going to be presenting the full-on backlog because that's such a significant part of our business, especially on the defense side at this point. We think that's the more appropriate way to look at our overall backlog position.

[Vivek Srivastava, VP at Goldman Sachs]

Very helpful. I'll pass it on. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Tim Thein with Raymond James. Please proceed with your questions.

[Tim Thein, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Raymond James]

Yeah. Thanks. Good morning. Just, I guess one for me is in on the gross margins and a lot obviously discussed here in terms of the outlook for the second quarter. But thinking, you know, in terms of, I believe the expectation coming into the year was that you may see more of a lift in the back half of the year as you better absorb some of that aerospace fixed capacity and that the Dodge synergies, you know, kick in even more. But as and, you know, as the industrial economy obviously being weaker. Does that change the outlook in terms of, you know, the on the Dodge side?

[Tim Thein, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Raymond James]

And then I guess, related to that, was there some maybe pull ahead that maybe some of those benefits that were expected you were expecting more in the later part of the year, maybe they came earlier, as a contributor in the first quarter? So I guess simply stated, do you still is the expectation still that there's room for more, even more kind of a second half lift from some of these drivers?

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

You know, well, right now, we continue to expect the second half lift. You know, one of the things that attracted us to Dodge when we bought Dodge is when you look at the revenue performance at Dodge over a series of years, you know, through various economic cycles, it's a very low beta company. You know, it's so integrated into the US infrastructure that, you know, when you're pouring your cereal in the morning, we actually had something to do with that. You know, when you're driving your car over a street or a bridge to get to work, we actually had something to do with that road. So, you know, we're.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Whatever we supplied only lasted a few years before nature had its way with it, and we had to replace it. So, you know, Dodge has a very strong recurring revenue driven by human consumption in North America. And so, you know, whether the economy is expanding or it's contracting slightly, Dodge's business is probably gonna perform well through those cycles. In terms of what we expect for the rest of the year, you know, we expect the semiconductor to pick up, and we expect oil and gas to recover. And, if there's more tension in the Middle East that interferes with the production of oil, it will. We will definitely feel the acceleration in our business.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

So that's, that's sort of where the thing sits right now.

[Tim Thein, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Raymond James]

Got it. Got it. Okay. All right. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call over to Dr. Hartnett for any closing remarks.

[Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO at RBC Bearings Incorporated]

Okay. Well, I'd like to thank everyone for participating today. We look forward to speaking again to you in the fall. Good day.

[Operator]

This will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.

Participants

Executives

• Rob Moffatt, Director of Investor Relations
• Michael Hartnett, Chairman, President and CEO
• Rob Sullivan, VP and CFO

Analysts

• Kristine Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley
• Michael Ciarmoli, Senior Research Analyst of Aerospace & Defense at Truist Securities
• Pete Skibitski, Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at Alembic Global Advisors
• Jordan Lyonnais, Equity Research Associate of Aerospace & Defense at Bank of America
• Steve Barger, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets
• Vivek Srivastava, VP at Goldman Sachs
• Tim Thein, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Raymond James