Curtiss-Wright Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 8, 2024

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to the Curtiss Wright Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Jim Ryan, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Speaker 1

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Curtiss Wright's 2nd quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Bamford Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Chris Sparks. Our call today is being webcast and the press release as well as a copy of today's financial presentation is available for download through the Investor Relations section of our company website atcurtisswright.com. A replay of this webcast also can be found on the website.

Speaker 1

Please note today's discussion will include certain projections and statements that are forward looking as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance. We detail those risks and uncertainties associated with our forward looking statements and our public filings with the SEC. As a reminder, the company's results include an adjusted non GAAP view that excludes certain costs in order to provide greater transparency into Curtiss Wright's ongoing operating and financial performance. Any references to organic growth are on an adjusted basis and exclude foreign currency translation, acquisitions, and restructuring, once otherwise noted.

Speaker 1

GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations for current and prior year periods are available in the earnings release and on our website. I'd like to turn the call over to Lynn to get things started.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Today marks our first earnings call following our May 2024 Investor Day. During the event, we provided investors with an overview of our pivot to growth strategy, a recap of our prior 3 years journey and our new 3 year financial targets, we appreciated the opportunity to showcase some of our critical technologies and several of our key business leaders across Curtiss Wright. The event had a great turnout and I value everyone's support and feedback. As you will see in our results today, we are off to a great start.

Speaker 2

Our performance emphasizes our focus on accelerating the pace of long term organic growth across all of our end markets, along with the team's dedication to operational excellence, future margin expansion and free cash flow generation. I am confident we are building strong momentum to compound sustained profitable growth in the years ahead. With that, I'll turn to today's presentation. I'll begin by covering the highlights of our 2nd quarter performance and will provide a few comments regarding our discussing the recently announced acquisition of Ultra Energy and some closing remarks before we move to Q and A. Starting with the highlights of our Q2 2024 performance, sales of $785,000,000 increased 11% year over year, driven by better than expected performance in the Defense Electronics segment and the timing of revenues in the Naval and Power segment.

Speaker 2

Underscoring this performance, we achieved strong mid to high teens growth across all our aerospace and defense markets. Operating income increased 16% year over year, exceeding our sales growth and resulted in 60 basis points of overall operating margin expansion. Diluted earnings per share of $2.67 increased 24% year over year and also exceeded our expectations, primarily due to the higher sales. Free cash flow was strong at $100,000,000 and in line with the prior year, reflecting nearly 100 percent conversion. Regarding our order book, we continue to experience strong growth, particularly within our A and D markets, driving overall new orders up 18% year over year to nearly $1,000,000,000 or 1.3 times book to bill in the 2nd quarter.

Speaker 2

This strong demand enabled us to once again reach a record level of backlog now in excess of $3,200,000,000 which provides us with great visibility for the second half of twenty twenty four and supports our long term outlook. Within our A and D order book, we experienced robust demand in our naval defense businesses supporting aircraft carrier and We are also seeing positive order trends within our commercial markets. The most notable increases in demand were in our industrial businesses and more specifically industrial vehicles, where orders improved and have now essentially stabilized year over year. Next is some highlights of our full 2024 guidance. Our strong first half performance along with our growing order book provided confidence to increase our overall guidance for the majority of our key metrics.

Speaker 2

We now expect overall sales to increase 6% to 8% and we continue to target operating margin expansion while making significant incremental investments in both internally and externally funded research and development. This puts us on track to firmly deliver double digit growth in diluted EPS this year. In addition, we increased our already strong free cash flow guide to reflect higher confidence in the full year outlook. Overall, we are well positioned to deliver exceptional results in 2024. Finally, we launched a corporate wide restructuring program and several cost saving initiatives in the Q2 to support our future growth and improve our overall operational efficiency.

Speaker 2

We expect these actions to affect all three segments, but mainly impact the A and I segment. We anticipate approximately $15,000,000 in restructuring costs in 2024 and approximately $10,000,000 in annualized savings through operating income in 2025. In addition, we expect to recognize a portion of these savings this year in the ANI segment, which is embedded within our updated guidance. Additionally, we completed the consolidation of our U. K.

Speaker 2

Legal entity structure, which Chris had initially discussed at Investor Day. He'll provide some more additional color on the specific benefits of this program later in our prepared remarks. Overall, the savings generated by these two initiatives support our ongoing pursuit of operating margin expansion and EPS growth and will generate additional funding to reinvest back into the business. We also expect them to contribute to our already strong free cash flow position. In summary, Curtiss Wright continues to build momentum through the execution of our pivot to growth strategy and we remain confident in our ability to deliver long term shareholder value.

Speaker 2

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Chris to continue with our prepared remarks.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Wayne. On Slide 4, I'll review the key drivers of our Q2 2024 performance by segment. I'll begin in Aerospace and Industrial, where overall sales growth of 3% was in line with our expectations. Within the segment's Commercial Aerospace market, we experienced strong low teens OEM sales growth supporting the continued ramp up in production across narrow body and wide body platforms. Within the segment's aerospace defense market, we experienced solid sales growth in both sensors actuation equipment due to the timing of production on various programs.

Speaker 3

Those increases were partially offset by reduced sales in the general industrial market, principally due to the timing of industrial vehicle orders. And turning to the segment's profitability,

Speaker 4

our results reflect favorable absorption

Speaker 3

on higher sales as well as a small contribution from our newly launched 2024 restructuring actions. Next in the Defense Electronics segment, strong sales growth of 16% was modestly ahead of our expectations as this business continues to benefit from the conversion of its healthy backlog. This performance was driven by better than expected growth within our ground defense market due in part to the timing of tactical communication equipment revenues and deliveries accelerated into the 2nd quarter. Across this market, we continue to benefit from an increase in demand from both domestic and direct foreign military customers. Within aerospace defense, we once again experienced strong growth in embedded computing sales across a number of C5ISR programs, including the Black Hawk and Seahawk helicopter programs to name a few.

Speaker 3

Regarding the segment's operating performance, we delivered a strong 25.7 percent operating margin, up 3.90 basis points year over year, principally reflecting absorption on higher revenues and a shift in mix towards higher margin C5ISR programs and tactical communications equipment. Turning to the Naval and Power segment, sales growth of 15% exceeded our expectations. This is partly due to the strength and timing of naval defense revenues and production ramps on a few key platforms, including the CVN-eighty one aircraft carrier. In addition, our results reflected higher submarine revenues including production on the Columbia Class and Virginia Class programs as well as development on the SSNX Within the segment's aerospace defense market, our results reflected increased sales of aircraft arresting systems equipment, principally supporting U. S.

Speaker 3

Military bases. In the power and process market, our results reflected continued strong demand in the commercial nuclear market supporting the ongoing maintenance of U. S. Operating reactors along with modest growth in the process market including higher subsea pump development revenues. As indicated in our recent July 29 press release, our subsea pump development efforts are proceeding well.

Speaker 3

We recently achieved a significant development milestone with Seisme for technological readiness and we expected, our results reflected both unfavorable mix and an increased concentration of development programs across our naval defense, commercial nuclear and process markets. To sum up our Curtiss Wright second quarter, overall, we generated solid absorption on stronger than expected top line performance resulting in 60 basis points in year over year operating margin expansion. Next, turning to our full year 2024 guidance. I'll begin on Slide 5 with our end market sales outlook, where we now expect organic sales to grow 5% to 7%, with total sales growth of 6% to 8%, driven by an upward revision across most of our A and D markets. Starting in Aerospace Defense, we now expect full year sales growth of 7% to 9%, driven by an improved outlook for sensors and actuation equipment sales supporting various fighter jet programs including the F-thirty 5.

Speaker 3

In addition, we continue to expect strong embedded computing equipment revenue supporting various C5 ISR programs and are projecting a sequential ramp in these revenues over the remainder of the year. Within Ground Defense, our outlook for 10% to 12% sales growth remains unchanged. In this market, we demonstrated very strong growth in the first half of the year, partly due to timing and continue to experience overall solid demand for our tactical communications equipment. In Naval Defense, we now expect full year sales to grow 5% to 7% based on the strong volume of orders received in the 2nd quarter. This updated guidance includes our fleet services as we look for the second half of this year.

Speaker 3

Turning to Commercial Aerospace, a strong first half performance, particularly for our surface treatment services provides us with confidence to raise our full year sales growth to a new range of 13% to 15%. We continue to expect higher OEM production on narrow body and wide body aircraft while maintaining a conservative view as it relates to the 737 MAX program. Wrapping up our aerospace and defense markets, we now expect total sales to increase 8% to 10% in 2024. Moving on to our commercial markets, in the Power and Process market, our outlook for 4% to 6% sales growth remains unchanged. Within our commercial nuclear market, we continue to expect a high single digit full year growth rate, principally driven by strong aftermarket revenues, while in the process market, we expect a low single digit full year growth rate driven by higher subsea pump development revenues.

Speaker 3

In the general industrial market, based on weaker first half industrial vehicle sales serving the on and off highway markets, we've reduced our full year expectations to flat for this market. However, looking to the remainder of the year, the generally positive trends in our shorter cycle surface treatment services along with the improved order activity that Lynn highlighted earlier provides us with confidence for improved second half performance in this market. Wrapping up our total commercial markets, we are now targeting full year sales growth of 1% to 3%. Moving on to our full year outlook by segment on Slide 6, I'll begin in Aerospace and Industrial where we are increasing our revenue guidance to 4% to 6%. This is principally driven by the strong first half sales growth and outlook in commercial aerospace along with improved expectations within our aerospace defense market.

Speaker 3

Regarding the segment's profitability, we now expect operating income growth of 8% to 11% and operating margin expansion of 50 to 70 basis points to a new range of 16.9% to 17.1%, which is 30 basis points above our prior expectations. For your modeling purposes, we expect 3rd quarter sales and operating income to be largely on par with the segment's 2nd quarter results due to the timing of sales within our European operations. We then expect the segment to deliver a strong finish to the year reflecting favorable absorption and mix along with the benefits of our ongoing margin improvement initiatives. Next, in Defense Electronics, we continue to expect sales to grow 8% to 10%, driven by a stronger order book and demand across our A A to 70 basis points in range from 24% to 24.2%. As a reminder, the segment's profitability also includes an incremental $5,000,000 or 50 basis point headwind in internally funded R and D investments, the bulk of which are expected to impact our second half results.

Speaker 3

In Enable and Power, following the strong first half growth in revenues and robust order activity in Naval Defense, we have raised our expectations for revenue growth to a new range of 5% to 7%. Regarding the segment's profitability, we raised our operating income guidance slightly to a new range of flat to down 2%. While we continue to anticipate favorable absorption on higher sales, we maintained our prior margin outlook primarily due to unfavorable mix and margin pressures associated with the accelerated ramp up in development programs across Naval and Power. Of note and for your modeling purposes, we expect this segment's 3rd quarter revenues to be slightly below the stronger than anticipated second quarter results, primarily due to the timing of Naval Defense revenues. However, over the course of the second half of the year, we anticipate improved profitability as we move past the impact of the Q1 naval contract adjustment, experienced a more favorable mix and recognized the benefits of our operational excellence initiatives.

Speaker 3

But to summarize our outlook, overall, we now expect total Curtiss Wright operating income to grow 6% to 9% and continue to expect operating margin to range from 17.4% to 17.6%, including a year over year increase of more than $20,000,000 in total engineering spending. Continuing with our financial outlook on Slide 7. As Lynn mentioned earlier, and as I outlined in the case study at our May Investor Day, Curtiss Wright has executed a targeted legal entity consolidation. This initiative at a nominal cost will facilitate efficient cash repatriation and have the added benefit of generating approximately $5,000,000 in annual recurring savings impacting both tax expense and free cash flow. This is the main driver of our 100 basis point reduction in the effective tax rate to 22.5%.

Speaker 3

Of note, we continue to pursue opportunities to facilitate tax efficiency and are actively looking to drive additional tax savings to Curtiss Wright in 2025 and beyond. Next to our EPS guidance, we now expect full year 2024 diluted EPS to range from 10 $0.40 to $10.65 up 11% to 14%, which aligns with our Investor Day target for double digit growth. As we look ahead to the second half of this year, we expect our Q3 2024 EPS to be relatively on par with our 2nd quarter results followed by a strong finish to the year. And lastly, turning to free cash flow. Based on our strong year to date performance, our projections for improved earnings and the tax benefits from our UK consolidations project, we've raised our free cash flow outlook to a new range of $425,000,000 to $445,000,000 This outlook reflects solid growth of 3% to 8% and a free cash flow conversion rate in excess of 105%, which is in line with our long term targets.

Speaker 3

Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Lynn.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Chris. And turning to Slide 8, I'd like to spend the next few minutes reviewing the recently announced acquisition of Ultra Energy, which is a leading supplier of neutron and radiation monitoring systems, temperature and pressure sensors, as well as complementary reactor protection and control systems. This business has a long legacy dating back to the 1950s and today maintains 3 facilities, 2 in the U. K. And 1 in Texas.

Speaker 2

They're led by an experienced management team backed by more than 90 engineers and strong customer relations, all of which make it a great fit to Fertus Wright. Ultra Energy is a diversified business that principally critical support to commercial nuclear operating reactors and other power generation plants across the globe, focused on the safe operation of the reactor from the core to the control room. In the commercial nuclear aftermarket, it will add products and services to further advance Curtiss Wright's support of plant life extensions and modernization projects for aging plants. In addition, the acquisition will extend our presence with the leading designers of small modular reactors, both domestically and in Europe. Altra also serves the defense markets by providing support to the legacy U.

Speaker 2

K. Nuclear submarine fleet as well as current and next generation designs. Regarding the key financials, we paid approximately $200,000,000 for Altra at less than 12 times next 12 months EBITDA. We expect the deal to be dilutive to overall Curtiss Wright operating margin in the 1st year of ownership, but have line of sight for this business to contribute to our overall acquisition criteria, both as a strategic and a financial fit, giving its strong market position and opportunities for profitable growth. We expect this transaction to close in the Q3 and therefore are not including Ultra Energy within our guidance at this time.

Speaker 2

Overall, this is another example of the strength of Curtiss Wright's balance sheet and an exciting acquisition that expands our global presence across our key end markets. Turning to Slide 9 and to summarize our prepared remarks today, we are well positioned to deliver a strong result in 2024. We are confident in our ability to generate 6% to 8% total sales growth this year and we anticipate a strong second half performance. We remain committed to delivering incremental operating margin expansion, while maintaining strategic investments in research and development as we continue to accelerate our long term organic growth. We expect to generate double digit EPS growth yet again in 2024 and strong free cash flow with a solid conversion rate in excess of 105%.

Speaker 2

Regarding our 2024 restructuring program, we have positioned ourselves for future growth across the business and will continue to do what has been ingrained within our culture that is improving the overall efficiency of Curtiss Wright operations. Finally, I'd like to reemphasize some of the most important takeaways from our Investor Day that are driving our confidence in achieving our long term organic growth targets. Throughout the course of today's call, we discussed a number of exciting growth opportunities and strategic investments that underpinned our Q2 year to date results. Many of these will remain key drivers of our future growth and support our outlook to grow organic sales at a greater than 5% CAGR through 2026. For example, and starting in defense technologies are well aligned with to support the U.

Speaker 2

S. And the allies in this elevated threat environment. Of note, this includes the importance of our C5ISR and tactical communications equipment as well as our support of the U. S. Navy's most critical shipbuilding programs.

Speaker 2

Beyond that, the current state of the naval ship construction and the need to shore up the overall industrial base affords us the opportunity to grow our aftermarket capabilities and further support our customers. Outside of the U. S, we have experienced strong international growth, driving increased direct foreign military sales that have and should continue to benefit each of our defense end markets. In Commercial Aerospace, we remain ideally situated to leverage our strong and growing backlog and support the anticipated ramp up in narrow body and wide body production. Overall, I'm pleased to note that these markets, which represent more than 2 thirds of Curtiss Wright's overall business, are well supported by strong demand that will enable us to deliver on our Investor Day targets of mid to high single digit A and D sales growth.

Speaker 2

Within our commercial markets, the momentum continues in commercial nuclear with new developments such as the recent signing of the Advanced Act, driving continued support for the industry at large, particularly next generation reactors. The act, which received strong bipartisan support, was the first significant piece of commercial nuclear legislation passed in almost 2 decades. Of note, it streamlines the regulatory approval process for new advanced reactor designs. This is one of many ongoing developments that are expected to help strengthen the nation's efforts to restore its competitive nuclear energy advantage and further support Curtiss Wright's growth in this end market. We are also intently focused on managing Curtiss Wright's consolidated portfolio as we navigate the changing market dynamics impacting some of our industrial and process businesses.

Speaker 2

In addition to addressing the opportunities that are driving our business today, we're also investing for Curtiss Wright's future to proactively capture the medium and long term secular growth trends that we discussed at Investor Day. We are committed to spending more than $20,000,000 in incremental R and D this year to support critical initiatives such as sub sea pumps, small modular reactors or the future SSNX Submarine. They represent but a few of the many development projects underway with the potential to drive 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars in additional growth through the end of this decade and well into the future. Lastly, we are an agile and flexible business with a strong track record of proactively addressing business efficiency and successfully navigating challenging market conditions. This has enabled us to drive continued margin expansion and returns for our shareholders.

Speaker 2

In closing, we're off to a great start and the momentum continues. Our technologies, expertise and portfolio of solutions are incredibly well aligned with our customer and industry needs as well as the growth trends in our core markets. We are well positioned to deliver strong profitable growth in 2024 and we remain confident in our ability to deliver on our long term guidance. Thank you. And at this time, I would like to open up today's conference call for questions.

Operator

Absolutely. The floor is now open for your Our first question is coming from Christine Liwag with Morgan Stanley.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning. Lynn and Chris, supply chain has been a headwind for defense electronics in the past few quarters. But with the acceleration of sales that we're seeing now, it seems like supply chain constraints have been easing. Can you provide more color on where you are now on material receipts and where you are in shortages and when you'd expect catch up deliveries to level set?

Speaker 2

Sure. So it is true that I would say we haven't taken our eye off of supply chain, but largely the major disruptions are definitely behind us and we see good stability across our supply chain. And some of the best practices we put in place back in 2022 around various tools to manage our supply chain and different ways of engaging with the supply base continue on. So where there are little pockets of issues, we've improved our processes and how we engage and those continue to prove to be successful. I would say that broadly lead times have come down across a variety of components, but older components which we build a lot of legacy products specifically in the Defense Electronics, those lead times seem to have come down from the over 52 weeks to maybe more in the lines of 40 weeks.

Speaker 2

And that seems to be just where they're stuck and we don't really anticipate any real notable change in that area going forward and I think that is just the new norm for those. I will say I'm pleased to say prices have been very stable in the supply chain. We really started seeing that at the end of 'twenty but for sure in 'twenty three and that continues. It doesn't mean there's no price increases, but they're just traditional incremental minor incremental price increases. So that's very good.

Speaker 2

As we look at destocking, I guess the two places we are most conscious of this is across our industrial businesses, where we think we're level set and producing with our customers at this point in time. And we watch it, we work very closely with our customers, But we things are broadly good there. And the other place where people tend to ask about that is around commercial aerospace. And we can talk a lot about our orders. Chris added some color to what we're watching and taking some caution around how we view things specifically tied to the 737 MAX that Boeing is producing a 25 per month, which I think is broadly known.

Speaker 2

We think our content ranges anywhere from 25 to 35 a month given the wide variety of things we do. But something that we've kind of we use as one of the litmus test for how we analyze this is we don't just look in the current quarter or even the past 12 months, but we look over a several year period and track our production rates compared to Boeing and Airbus. And they're largely in line slightly behind those multi year production rates, which leads us to believe we're not really in an overstocking situation. And if you really also layer in some price increases and some spares type of work that gets mixed in with that, it makes us feel comfortable with where we are and how we're producing in those markets. So hopefully that answers the things you were wondering about.

Speaker 5

Yes, that's really great color on supply chain. Thank you. And switching gears to margins, I mean, margins are at record levels, a testament to the strong operating performance of the team. Can you talk about the rationale to implement restructuring plans now? And can you provide more details on exactly what your initiatives entail and where margins could potentially peak because it seems like you're not done?

Speaker 2

So obviously we committed to growing OI faster than sales again in our 2024 Investor Day. So we don't believe we're done. And we're a broad diverse business and as much as we're proud of the overall performance and we are really proud and the teams are doing a great job to achieve that. It doesn't mean that we don't continue to analyze and look inside of the businesses to see areas where we can drive efficiency in the business and we'll tackle those regardless of how we're performing at the current time. But I'd also note that some of the restructuring that we're doing is to support volume increases and it's to better align ourselves and have our businesses prepared for that long term profitable growth.

Speaker 2

So we tend to think of restructuring as taking out cost structures, but I'm very pleased to say some of this restructuring is also to support the volume increases. So it's just I think part of how we manage the business. We don't look at just the overall numbers. We look down through all the business units within and order trends in those businesses and try to be proactive. And as I think the chatter of a recession surely increased this week, heightens back up a bit.

Speaker 2

We feel good that we were proactive and have addressed this. And really it's across all three segments, but really not we're not prepared to give any real specifics about this action or that action.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hey, morning guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice results. Len, you may have just answered this, but no more kind of meat or substance. You can't give us anything kind of on that restructuring.

Speaker 6

Are you bringing footprint? Are you cutting heads or trimming product lines? Or I know you said it was across all segments, but any detail? And is this I know you didn't give a specific margin bogey at the Investor Day, but is this ongoing restructuring necessary to kind of be in that top quartile? Or is this additive?

Speaker 2

I'll have Chris take a shot at that and see if he can put a little more color on it.

Speaker 3

I definitely can. So I appreciate the question, Mike. And I'll answer your last question first. And I think the way that we're looking at this is to just echo what Lynn had said, it's really about positioning ourselves for future growth across the business. But as we've emphasized many times in the past and spent a lot of time talking about it at Investor Day, we are constantly looking to optimize our operations.

Speaker 3

We've done all of the things that you've mentioned in the past, whether it's footprint rationalization, labor efficiency moves across the organization, product line, separations, and we continue to look at that constantly across the organization. So in this case, the majority of the restructuring spend and benefit is going to be across the ANI segment. And we are heavily focused on areas of both growth and achieving

Speaker 4

efficiency. I think as you

Speaker 3

look across the other segments in Defense Electronics, Enable and Power, you're looking at a little bit more of movements that might be focused towards footprint rationalization and those activities that are set up to support future growth. But it is certainly growth focused across each one of the segments. So as we look at the total spend, I mean, it's important to note that it's about 12 to $13,000,000 of that is going to be in cash. It's expense, but it's cash and about $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 of that is non cash. And that's just when you're moving your footprint around, you do have impairments and things like that that affected.

Speaker 3

But we're happy that we could raise our cash flow guidance here and not remove that from the results. So it really speaks to the health of the organization and what's happening in cash.

Speaker 6

Got it. Got it. And then just you had a really strong quarter here, especially on earnings. I know you had kind of previously called out the 40%, forty-sixty split. But just anything unusual?

Speaker 6

I mean, if I look at the cadence of this year, you grew first half revenues 12%. You raised, but you're really going to see a step down in growth, probably like 3% even at the high end. And I guess specifically honing in just on defense, the low end of your market guidance there for again just your defense would assume revenues are down second half, first first half. Is there anything and I don't think you've ever done that before where we see revenues be down. Is there any kind of nuance or anything kind of unusual this year?

Speaker 3

Yes, I would say across Aerospace and Defense, Mike, we are relatively flat. I mean, we are projecting a very slight increase in the back half of the year. And you are right, this is somewhat unusual. I think Lynn and Christine kind of hit upon it, some of this a little bit earlier in that the health and improvement of the supply chain has had a pretty dramatic effect, particularly on the businesses that we have within our ground defense market. So as we look at ground defense, with our very strong first half of the year, based upon the timing and recovery of that supply chain, and also some conservatism that we're taking in that market relative to some of the movement and things that we're doing to support our restructuring.

Speaker 3

We're taking a little bit of a conservative view in that regard. I mentioned on the call that the aerospace defense market is still expecting a good sequential ramp, but some of the revenue here in Enable and Power and this has really helped to contribute to our beat on the quarter was timing, right? So you saw that slide from Q3, Q4 into the Q2. And we'll see how things go across the remaining half of the year. Within commercial aerospace, we had a very, very strong first half of the year, but we continue to approach that the ahead.

Speaker 3

But at this point in time, we felt it was prudent to take a conservative approach.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then just the last one again, nuance with the guidance. I mean, I don't know where we are in the broader macro, but it sounded you had tougher growth in industrial, but you've got a really big 12% sequential step up in the second half to get to flat. And I think you called out the uptick in orders on the vehicle. So presumably, you've got line of sight there and it sounds like some of those challenges you called out stabilization and it looks like you've got pretty good visibility there?

Speaker 3

Yes, it's definitely an area where when we talked to you last in the Q1 on the call, we talked about general industrial orders being down and but that we were encouraged and starting to see signs that things were stabilizing and through the communication that we have with our customers and the awards that we saw ahead of us. Here in the Q2, we have actually flattened out year to date and that's actually a very big achievement for this business because since those highs of 2021, we have been we've had strong orders, but they've been decreasing quarter after quarter. So the stabilization that we had here is very encouraging. And then I will say, as we're monitoring this very closely and 1 month doesn't make a year by any stretch, but we had our highest order month in general industrial in the past 16 months. So we saw signs of strength and some of that will convert here very late in the year.

Speaker 3

So good question.

Speaker 6

Okay. Yes, that's great color. Thanks guys. I'll come back in the queue.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Megan.

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Nathan.

Speaker 2

Hey, Nathan. We're not hearing you if you're talking. Nathan,

Speaker 7

My apologies. I was on mute. So good morning, everyone. Maybe I'll start with

Speaker 3

a couple of questions

Speaker 7

around the Subsea pump announcement.

Speaker 3

Still in the process of commercializing it, I

Speaker 7

know you guys had that on display at the Analyst Day and the folks there involved with that project were pretty excited about it. I think you've sized that as a pretty material opportunity over the next 10 years. So maybe any commentary on the time frame for commercializing that product and any discussion around the opportunity that you see over the next 5 to 10 years from that business?

Speaker 2

Yes. So it is an area that we're definitely as the visibility in the market becomes clear of what we have, we can definitely see that there's strong demand for the reliability that we can bring to this market that is just dependent on much more commercial kind of grades of products. And so we feel great about the products we're building and proud that it's another example of our crossover technology where we take a core investment and continue to take it to first enable then commercial nuclear and now this market and who knows what the future holds for us. There's some other things we're even exploring. But with that, I think we mentioned that there's a potential of 250,000,000 dollars in orders by the end of this decade.

Speaker 2

And I'm sure you know we've talked about the 3 major customers that we have had press releases on our engagements with. Petrobras was announced back in February 24. We signed a contract with them to develop and deploy a pump and that project is off to a great start. We've talked about our shell development for quite some time. It goes back a while and we're on track to be able to deliver and be ready for deployment our first subsea pumping system by the end of this year.

Speaker 2

And so we're really pleased with that. And then there was obviously the press release on Saipan about completion of the qualification process, which is very major and we know for sure that some potential customers, Petrobras and Total is to had been named publicly. We're really waiting for that milestone to figure out how they're going to work it into their operations. So just a lot of great things going on in that market. We see that $250,000,000 by the end of this decade, doubling to over $500,000,000 in orders by the middle of next decade.

Speaker 2

And I think as we continue to open the doors with more customers with the technology that number will only stand to grow as we go forward.

Speaker 7

Great. A question on the orders. I know you can have some lumpiness in some of the business on order rates, but the first and second quarter order rates were up significantly and very high book to bill. And maybe a little bit more color on where you're seeing the strength in those order rates? How much that's increasing your confidence about the revenue profile and revenue growth as we head into 2025?

Speaker 3

Sure. I'll take that one on the Ignite. We had another very strong quarter for sales and I think that's always relevant when you start talking about book to bill. But our book to bill overall for the Q2 was about 1.3 times. And we had a 1.4 times book to bill across our aerospace and defense businesses and certainly heavier weighted towards the defense side of things and we had a one time book to bill across our commercial businesses.

Speaker 3

As you break down the orders, we did have a large amount of orders come through this quarter and we know it can be lumpy, but it's still a good time for the business and what we're looking outward towards in naval defense and we saw a good slug of orders just kind of continuing to support what we have as that existing business and key content on the carrier and sub platforms. But I was also really encouraged to see here in the quarter, we had a number of wins across our naval handling systems businesses to direct foreign military customers and that's good business. So some signs of life, we talked a little bit about that at Investor Day, that things are growing. And then beyond that, we received some orders to support fleet services in the aftermarket, another thing that we talked about at Investor Day. So starting to see some more activity in those areas and it's encouraging.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Peter Arment with Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Yes, thanks. Good morning, Lynn, Christian. Thanks for the results. Lynn, maybe just to talk about it from maybe a follow-up on Nathan's question about orders. Just when we look at like particularly like Defense Electronics, your growth for the year 8% to 10%, you obviously just had a really strong quarter, 16% growth.

Speaker 7

Maybe you could talk a little bit about the differences you're seeing, whether it's domestic versus FMS and kind of how sustainable it is? I know FMS is notoriously lumpy, but is there are we still like in the early innings for the build out of what they need internationally and maybe just talk about those differences? Thanks.

Speaker 2

So thanks for that question. And it is something that we're I will say I very actively engage with the team to

Speaker 3

try and understand

Speaker 2

that this is across the board with the pipeline of total opportunities, the bidding activity, a whole variety of things, it does not feel it feels like we're on a steady straight growth rate. Now whether it holds at the exact same levels, we gave some guidance this at Investor Day, but not really getting into 25 or 26 specific targets. But we very much do think it is sustainable in what we're doing. And the drivers specifically through foreign military sales feel like they are at early days. And I think we're starting to see actually even some of the ground vehicle programs across Europe finally start to take form and move in that scenario that I think we anticipated in 'twenty two we would start seeing demand from in 'twenty three given the war activity over in Europe and it's taken a lot longer than we would have anticipated, but I think that's very early days.

Speaker 2

A lot of pull across the NATO countries for our tactical communications equipment and I think there's a lot of tailwinds still with that. And then as Chris mentioned, our handle aircraft handling equipment and the arresting systems that we have through the recent ESCO acquisition that we just have ongoing engagement around those activities. So I think things just are really solid across our broadly, Defense Electronics specifically than even our form of military sales that's obviously outside of Defense Electronics.

Speaker 7

Appreciate that color. And then just for the follow-up and just switching gears on your nuclear aftermarket business. Is that how does that get impacted by the Advance Act? Or I know there's we've been tracking all the plant life extensions and the permitting that's been going on. Does that allow for any pull forward?

Speaker 7

Or is it just kind of in line with what you were thinking what you laid out at the Investor Day where this business is going to grow substantially?

Speaker 2

So the Advance Act is more for new build. It's interesting there's both the Advance Act and something else that's happened since our Investor Day is DOE. The DOE has put forward a notice of an intent to fund $900,000,000 for Gen 3 plus at small modular reactors where the Advance Act is broad, but it's more geared as the Gen 4 Advance Reactors. And so Advance Act actually had been moving through Congress for quite some time, so we were well aware of it, but it's nice to see it get signed into law. So that's definitely a great development.

Speaker 2

I would say in our broadly in our aftermarket business, of the 94 operating reactors in the U. S, now over 3, 4, just barely over, but over 3, 4, 7 have declared that they are intending to do a plant life extension. So that those numbers continue to inch up and we feel good about the low double digit growth in our total nuclear business guide that we put forth at the Investor Day that things continue on our development with the small modular reactors and the aftermarket continues to grow. And then early days, but we really are exploring some ways of broadening our footprint and we're really excited that the Altra acquisition, the WSE acquisitions both give us reach to different to new and different customers and a European footprint where a lot of the spend for Europe they want to do inside of Europe. So I feel really great about the 2 recent acquisitions in bringing both the simulation capability that gives us a reach to a global reach that we didn't have and a European reach that we didn't have.

Speaker 2

And so I feel great about our nuclear business overall and the aftermarket business in the U. S. Bringing Ultra in gives us more capability and they have some unique customer relationships doing things that we don't necessarily have. And so everything is just building on itself.

Speaker 7

Great to hear. I'll jump back in queue. Nice results.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Peter. Thank you.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Hi, good morning, everyone. This is Greg Dahlberg on for Myles Walton. Kind of continuing on Nathan's line of questioning, I was just wondering if you'd go into more details on new orders. I guess, what

Speaker 8

are you seeing for pricing

Speaker 1

of the new orders? And as a follow-up to that, are there any LTAs that you still need to be worked through on the renegotiation side?

Speaker 2

So I'll maybe just talk a little bit about the LTAs and then see if Chris can provide a little more color on the orders. And so we still do have LTAs that we are negotiating. This is an ongoing activity that can be just topics we have to work with our customers and there's LTAs that expire at the end of this year that we're very much engaged in working with our customers to find win win solutions. But yes, it is very much an ongoing activity, but I'll let Chris talk about pricing and any more color on the orders.

Speaker 3

Yes, I think you captured it well. I mean, we saw some opportunities that we're chasing on the LPAs and we'll do that and pricing is a constant exercise for us. Maybe just to touch upon a couple of the areas in orders that I didn't talk about. I mean, I think as you look across the defense electronics business for the second quarter, I mean they were at a one time book to bill, but again the sales for the 2nd quarter were up 16%. So very strong volume of order activity.

Speaker 3

Year over year, we did see some impact to the Defense Electronics orders from just timing of naval orders. I mean, they have a lot of content across these naval platforms as well and sometimes that can be a little bit lumpy. But I think as you look for the second half of the year with that business, we're encouraged with the continued trajectory and improvement that we're seeing in the month of July alone. Again, 1 month doesn't make a year. We saw a 24% increase in defense electronics orders in the month.

Speaker 3

So good things are happening. And as you step back and you look across our power and process markets, we were again at about a one time book to bill. We are expecting a bigger second half of the year for both of those businesses not dramatically, But a lot of

Speaker 4

that just has to do

Speaker 3

with the timing of turnarounds and outages and the work that's being performed within those businesses. So overall, no real signs of weakness in the order book or anything that has us concerned in the Q2.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you. I'll keep it at

Operator

We'll take our next question from Tony Bancroft with Gabelli Funds. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thank you, Lynn and Chris. Great job to your team. Another fabulous quarter. You've done some acquisitions that are maybe like not specifically in your core companies, but you guys ended up building these sort of other core competencies now. Where do we look to next?

Speaker 8

Anything transformational on the more on the nuclear side, more on the aerospace side or defense, ground defense? Maybe you could just sort of just give us your view going forward on where you're going to grow?

Speaker 2

Sure. Thank you for that and thanks for joining us. I would say a bit unusual that we had 2 back to back nuclear acquisitions. There's just not a lot of potential properties out there. So we were very purposeful in these and we did not overpay.

Speaker 2

I would like to definitely emphasize that. And so we feel great about bringing them into the portfolio of products and just broadening out our capabilities. And we have a lot of software modeling and content within the group. It doesn't get talked about quite as much. WSC was really nice as a software product expansion of what we do and very complementary to what we do.

Speaker 2

We always ask for priorities, we always list Defense Electronics as the top of mind priority. We have such a great business that is well integrated that we know we can bring properties into that team and they can leverage many of the strengths that are within that group, whether it's their channel to market, their ruggedization expertise, their supply chain efficiencies, manufacturing Curtis Wright. So that scenario we're always looking. Our naval footprint is very important to us. Again, not as many properties available to look at, but where we can have major safety and propulsion systems to build out our portfolio, that's an area where we always are looking.

Speaker 2

And so I mean we looked across all our end markets, so I don't want to say we would not there's no hard stop, so we would never consider something in any of our end markets. But across our defense markets and specifically defense electronics is probably the top priorities. And we always keep a keen eye for things we can continue to build out our nuclear footprint.

Speaker 8

That's great. Thank you so much. Great job.

Speaker 2

Yes. And I did really just add one more thing because I didn't really specifically address the transformational aspect of your question. We are open to larger transactions. I think when money is expensive, the financial win with those, the dynamics change with that. And it's not something we're targeting, but we're open to it.

Speaker 2

And we'll always have an eye to the art of the possible of what we can do with the business. But we're on such a great growth trajectory. We have so many tailwinds coming with us across our end markets and the technologies that we're building. I would say we're mostly focused on really doing the right thing and preparing for the growth that is before us. And you have the momentum to keep growing double digit EPS and delivering value to our shareholders with the portfolio we have.

Speaker 8

Thank you, Ed. Appreciate it.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning, Lynn, Chris and Jim. You've made significant investments from the R and D side in Masa for your defense electronics, which has seemingly led to market share gains. And it seems that the armed services are still in the early innings of this like modular MASA transition. I think the Army last week announced a $500,000,000 contract to implement Masa for future vertical lift. Do you see more market share gains associated with the migration to Masa and also some of your competitors in defense electronics have struggled, do you see market share gains associated with that as well?

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 2

So we're really pleased with our positions of our product portfolio and actually a handful of products that will be coming to market even yet in the back half of this year that have been in development for well over a year that are going to yet again up our breadth and the sophistication of the products we bring to market. So we believe we are very well positioned. We believe we have taken some market share over the past 12, 24 months due to various dynamics in the across the industry. But I think that trend, I've been cautious to say that it's hard for our customers to change. So they cannot just change on a dime and one day be buying from supplier X and 3 months later be shipping product with supplier Y.

Speaker 2

And so there is definitely engagements going on to make transitions. We are focused on it and targeting it, but that still has potential to be a tailwind for us and allow future growth. Those things that's out there as a dynamic and we've talked about this off and on over the years, but it's very much as true today as it has been for a long time. We're coming into a period in the U. S.

Speaker 2

Of potentially some relatively flat defense budget. And we have strategies to make that be a growth opportunity for us. And some of that through our life cycle maintenance programs that we touched on in the Investor Day and being able to continue to support maintaining the same product configuration for our customers where they're trying to control costs. And it also has the ability, if you have the right products, to drive outsourcing as they do not have the engineering funding to do custom solutions for products. And so it's we look to assure we're doing the right things that we latch on to growth drivers in the industry and where budgets are growing, but making sure we're doing the right things to grow when budgets are a little compressed.

Speaker 2

So the future is really great for that team.

Speaker 4

Okay. And so you see it as a very slow transition to this modular or systems approach, but it does

Speaker 2

still benefit here, right? 100%. And maybe I misspoke in some way. The transition to most of them, we've tried to do press releases over since 2021, 2022 of where we have been designed in based on our most compliant product offering. And there's a handful of them out there that you can find on our website.

Speaker 2

We win a lot of things based on having the MoSA offering. Just most frequently, we cannot talk about those wins. But it's endemic in the industry now and how customers, the primes or the government itself are looking to acquire and it is being viewed as a requirement, not a nice to have, but a got to have. And we are really well positioned with that and winning business based on that.

Speaker 4

Awesome. Thanks, Glenn. Thanks, Chris and Jim as well. That's it for me.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Luis.

Operator

And there are no further questions on the line at this time. I'll now turn the floor over to Lynn Bamford, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

I just want to say thank you to everybody for joining us today. We'll be on the road at some public events in Q3 that if you have the chance to join, that would be great. And if not, we'll talk to you at our Q3 earnings call. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's Curtiss Wright earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.

Powered by Quartr

Key Takeaways

  • Sales of $785 million in Q2 rose 11% year-over-year, driving a 16% increase in operating income, 60 bps of margin expansion, $2.67 EPS (up 24%), and $100 million of free cash flow.
  • New orders climbed 18% to nearly $1 billion (1.3x book-to-bill), lifting backlog above $3.2 billion and providing strong visibility into the second half of 2024.
  • Management raised full-year guidance to 6–8% total sales growth, 11–14% EPS growth to $10.40–$10.65, and $425–$445 million of free cash flow, while targeting continued margin expansion.
  • The company launched a $15 million restructuring program (driving <$10 million> of annual savings) and completed a UK legal consolidation to cut the effective tax rate by 100 bps to 22.5%.
  • Curtiss-Wright agreed to acquire Ultra Energy for about $200 million, adding nuclear sensor, monitoring, and control systems to its commercial nuclear and defense portfolio; the deal is expected to close in Q3.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Curtiss-Wright Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00