Curtiss-Wright Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Curtiss-Wright EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.82
• Consensus EPS: $2.39
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.43
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.99

Curtiss-Wright Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $805.65 million
• Expected Revenue: $767.32 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$38.32 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +13.00%

Curtiss-Wright Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/7/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Curtiss-Wright (NYSE:CW) (NYSE: CW) is a diversified, global engineering company that designs, manufactures and services highly engineered products and integrated systems for the aerospace, defense, and industrial markets. Its offerings span a range of electromechanical, motion control and flow control technologies, including flight control and actuation systems, sensors and avionics components, pumps and valves, power conversion and heat exchangers, and platform integration solutions for marine and ground systems. The company serves original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), government and defense agencies, and industrial customers who require robust, mission-critical equipment.

Founded through the 1929 merger of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, Curtiss-Wright has a long history tied to the development of aviation and defense technologies. Over the decades the company has evolved into a multi-segment engineering enterprise, combining legacy aerospace capabilities with specialized industrial and defense platforms. Its technologies are used in commercial and military aircraft, naval vessels, land vehicles, and industrial process systems.

Curtiss-Wright operates globally with engineering, manufacturing and service locations across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, supporting an international customer base and export-driven programs. Its product and service footprint includes aftermarket support, systems integration, testing and sustainment activities that emphasize reliability and lifecycle performance in demanding operating environments.

As of mid-2024, executive leadership includes David C. Adams serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, supported by a senior management team responsible for operations across the company’s business units. Curtiss-Wright emphasizes engineered solutions, long-term customer relationships, and investment in product development to address evolving requirements in aerospace, defense and industrial markets.

Curtiss-Wright Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Q1 2025 sales were $806 million, up 13% year-over-year (11% organic), driving a 34% increase in operating income and 260 basis points of margin expansion.
• The company raised its full-year 2025 guidance, now targeting 8–9% sales growth, 80–100 basis points of margin expansion to ~18.3–18.5%, 14–17% EPS growth, and $495–515 million in free cash flow.
• New orders in Q1 jumped 13% to over $1 billion, yielding a book-to-bill of 1.26× and lifting backlog to a record of more than $3.6 billion, underpinning strong visibility.
• Approximately 20% of the business is exposed to tariffs, with an estimated $30 million gross impact (around $10 million net for 2025), though mitigation measures via pricing and operational actions are in place.
• Commercial aerospace sales outlook was raised to 13–15%, driven solely by an FAA/EASA-mandated cockpit voice recorder program co-developed with Honeywell, marking the start of a multiyear retrofit and new-build opportunity.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the Curtiss-Wright First Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation.

[Operator]

If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one primary question and one follow-up. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to Jim Ryan, Vice President of Investor Relations.

[Jim Ryan, VP of Investor Relations at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you, Chelsea, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Curtiss-Wright's First Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Chair and Chief Executive Officer Lynn Bamford and Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Chris Farkas. A copy of today's financial presentation and the press release are available for download through the Investor Relations section of our website at curtisswright.com.

[Jim Ryan, VP of Investor Relations at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

A replay of this webcast will also be available on the website. Our discussion today includes certain projections and forward-looking statements that 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, including the impacts of tariffs and our public filings with the SEC.

[Jim Ryan, VP of Investor Relations at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

As a reminder, the company's results and guidance 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. GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations are available in the earnings release and on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Lynn to get things started.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. We are off to a great start in 2025 as we delivered fantastic results that exceeded our expectations. Before getting into the details, I would like to say a few words about the momentum that continues to build with respect to our pivot to growth strategy and how that translates into value for all of our stakeholders.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

First and foremost, I commend the team for embracing our strategy and their drive in execution, which has yielded better-than-expected results in both growth and efficiency. As we discussed at our May 2024 Investor Day, we continue to enhance customer engagement while leveraging our strong domain expertise as a highly valued supplier of mission-critical technologies to help solve our customers' most challenging problems.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

In addition, we are implementing the core principles of our Operational Growth Platform, remaining focused on both commercial and operational excellence to expand margins and free up funding opportunities for investments that will accelerate profitable growth across the portfolio.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Regarding our improved 2025 outlook, we take pride in meeting our commitments and being the company that investors can rely on to deliver strong results even in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty. Whether it was the quick return to providing guidance during the pandemic with minimal margin dilution or the rapid response of our team to the electronic supply chain challenges in 2022, in all cases, our team has responded quickly to adapt as needed and to deliver superior results.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

This is a testament not only to our strategy but also to our leadership positions in our end markets, as well as the people, the systems, and the processes that we continuously invest in to ensure that Curtiss-Wright is built for long-term success. As a result, and in the face of a number of macro-level uncertainties, we are confidently raising our overall full-year 2025 guidance.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

With that, I'll turn to today's presentation. Starting with our first quarter 2025 highlights, sales of $806 million represented an increase of 13% year-over-year, or 11% on an organic basis, driven by stronger-than-expected growth in our aerospace and defense markets. Operating income increased 34% year-over-year, once again exceeding our sales growth, and resulted in 260 basis points of overall operating margin expansion.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

This performance reflected the strong growth in sales, the benefits of our corporate-wide restructuring actions initiated last year to support future growth and efficiency, and our ongoing commercial and operational excellence programs. Diluted earnings per share increased 42% year-over-year, which also exceeded our expectations and was primarily driven by our higher A&D sales. Free cash flow, while typically a first-quarter outflow, reflected a year-over-year increase of 5%, while we continue to support investments across all three segments.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

New orders increased 13% year-over-year to a record of more than $1 billion and resulted in an overall book-to-bill of 1.26 times. Within our A&D markets, we experienced strong demand for naval nuclear propulsion equipment supporting the U.S. Navy's current and next-generation submarine programs. Orders within our commercial aerospace market were mainly driven by higher demand for avionics equipment within our Defense Electronics segment.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Within our commercial markets, we continued to benefit from increasing demand for commercial nuclear aftermarket products supporting the upcoming spring outage season, advanced SMRs, and the contribution from Ultra Energy. Overall, we reached a new record backlog in excess of $3.6 billion, which provides us great visibility and confidence in our long-term growth outlook.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Regarding our full-year guidance, we have raised our overall outlook for sales, operating margins, and earnings per share, and are on track to deliver strong top and bottom-line growth this year. We now expect overall sales to increase 8%-9%, reflecting an improved outlook in the majority of our A&D markets and the strength of our order book. In addition, the organization's continuous drive for commercial and operational excellence is fueling some tremendous margin expansion this year.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

We now anticipate an increase of 80-100 basis points in pursuit of a record operating margin of 18.3%-18.5%, and we expect to generate these strong returns while maintaining incremental investments in research and development. In addition, we expect to overcome the impact of tariff-related headwinds, which Chris will cover in more detail in a few minutes.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Diluted EPS is now expected to grow 14%-17%. In addition, we raised our free cash flow guide to reflect higher confidence in the full-year outlook and continue to expect strong free cash flow conversion. In summary, Curtiss-Wright remains well-positioned to deliver another exceptional performance in 2025. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Chris to provide a more in-depth review of our financials.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you, Lynn. I'll begin on slide four by reviewing the key drivers of our first quarter 2025 performance by segment. Starting in Aerospace and Industrial, overall sales increased 4%, which was slightly ahead of our expectations. Beginning with the segment's defense markets, we experienced solid increases in actuation equipment sales, most notably within our aerospace defense markets supporting the F-35 and F-18 programs, and also in ground defense for the Enduring Shield platform.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Within the segment's commercial aerospace market, our results reflected solid OEM sales growth, supporting increased production on both narrow-body and wide-body platforms. In the general industrial market, our results reflected a modest increase in sales for our industrial automation equipment, which was essentially offset by reduced sales of industrial vehicle products.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Turning to the segment's first quarter profitability, operating income and margin were ahead of expectations, growing 15% and 140 basis points respectively, driven by favorable absorption on higher sales and restructuring savings, as well as a tailwind from FX. Next, in the Defense Electronics segment, sales growth of 16% reflected increases in embedded computing equipment sales supporting a variety of C5ISR programs as we continue to benefit from increases in global demand.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Within the segment's aerospace defense market, we experienced higher revenues supporting various helicopter platforms, most notably on the Black Hawk, in addition to higher sales on the Triton UAV program. While in ground defense, our results mainly reflected higher revenues supporting U.S. Army vehicle modernization and replenishment.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Regarding the segment's operating performance, we delivered a record first-quarter operating margin of 27.5%, mainly reflecting favorable absorption on higher revenues, as well as a shift in mix towards higher margin C5ISR programs. In addition, we continue to improve the efficiency of our operations to support this business's future growth and further bolster our position as a leading supplier of Defense Electronics.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

First-quarter profitability also reflected the benefits of our prior restructuring program to expand our manufacturing capacity, as well as our ongoing operational and Commercial Excellence initiatives, which are now expected to promote further margin expansion in 2025. Turning to the Naval and Power segment, sales growth of 18% exceeded our expectations, principally driven by higher revenue across several key platforms in naval defense.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Within this market, our results reflected strong performance and execution on the submarine programs, as well as the timing and acceleration of material receipts from suppliers. In the power and process market, our results mainly reflected the contribution from acquisitions, driving strong growth in both our commercial nuclear and process markets.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

On an organic basis, we experienced high single-digit revenue growth in commercial nuclear supporting the maintenance of operating reactors, as well as the ramp-up in development across several SMR designs, including the X-energy and TerraPower Advanced Reactors. Elsewhere, within the process market, higher domestic MRO valve sales were essentially offset by the timing of large capital projects.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Regarding the segment's operating performance, favorable absorption on higher organic revenues was partially offset by unfavorable mix, as well as increased investment in customer-funded development programs supporting future growth in our naval defense and commercial nuclear businesses.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

As a reminder, last year's results included an unfavorable naval contract adjustment that did not recur in 2025. Beyond that, and as expected, while it was a strong contributor to our first-quarter sales growth, we did experience margin dilution from the Ultra Energy acquisition as we integrate this business into our operations.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

To sum up Curtiss-Wright's first-quarter results, overall, we generated a strong operating margin of 16.6%, driving 260 basis points in operating margin expansion on the stronger-than-expected top-line performance. Turning to our full-year 2025 guidance, I'll begin on slide five with our end market sales outlook, where we now expect total sales to grow 8%-9%, reflecting 5%-7% organic growth, mainly driven by continued momentum in Defense Electronics and more broadly across our A&D markets.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Starting in aerospace defense, our outlook for 6%-8% sales growth remains unchanged, mainly reflecting our strong order book for embedded computing equipment on various C5ISR programs. Within ground defense, we now expect full-year sales growth of 6%-8%, driven by increased throughput for our tactical communications equipment resulting from our recent restructuring actions.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

In naval defense, we now expect full-year sales growth of 5%-7% based on expectations for higher production revenue on submarine programs following the strong Q1 results, as well as higher aftermarket revenue supporting overhauls and retrofits on prior-generation carriers. Elsewhere, within our Defense Electronics business, we continue to anticipate strong growth in embedded computing revenue supporting various domestic and international programs.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Looking more broadly across all three defense markets, we now expect high-teens growth in direct foreign military sales in 2025, driven by the alignment of our technologies such as C5ISR and arresting systems equipment to support increased global defense spending priorities. Turning to commercial aerospace, we now expect full-year sales to increase 13%-15%, with the increased outlook fully driven by an exciting new avenue for growth in avionics equipment within our defense electronics segment.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Building upon our legacy flight data recorder technology used in both defense and commercial applications, we're bringing improved cockpit voice recorder solutions to the commercial aerospace market to meet new safety mandates for longer recording capability. Lynn will provide additional color on these efforts and our opportunities for growth later in her prepared remarks.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Wrapping up our aerospace and defense outlook, we now expect total sales in these markets to increase 7%-9% in 2025. Moving to our commercial markets, in power and process, our outlook for 16%-18% sales growth remains unchanged and continues to reflect a combination of mid to high single-digit organic revenue growth, as well as the contribution from Ultra Energy.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Within our commercial nuclear market, we continue to expect increased aftermarket sales supporting the maintenance of U.S., U.K., and South Korea reactors, as well as a ramp-up in development revenues across several SMR and advanced reactor designs. Next, within the process market, we continue to expect solid organic growth, mainly reflecting increased development on subsea pumps.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Lastly, in the general industrial, we continue to take a cautious approach and anticipate sales to be flat in 2025, where modest growth in industrial automation and surface treatment services will be offset by reduced sales of industrial vehicle products. Of note, the order book for our vehicle products has remained stable over the past five quarters in spite of ongoing industry headwinds.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Wrapping up our total commercial markets, we continue to target full-year sales growth of 9%-11%. Moving on to our full-year 2025 outlook by segment on slide six, I want to begin by discussing the tariff impact on our operations. Of note, approximately 20% of our businesses are currently subject to tariffs. For those areas where we have exposure at the gross level, we estimate approximately $30 million in impacts for the remainder of 2025, most of which is related to imports from China.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

As we instituted in 2018 and 2019, we have tariff mitigation strategies in place, including various pricing and operational actions to improve our competitive positioning and to protect our operating margin. As a result, we expect the 2025 net impact in tariffs to be approximately $10 million, about two-thirds within our Aerospace and Industrial segment and one-third in Naval and Power.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

We're also updating our expectations for the corporate-wide restructuring program that we initially launched in 2024, where we had originally anticipated $15 million in total cost to yield $10 million in annualized savings through operating income by the end of 2025. Due to additional actions being implemented this year, we now anticipate total cost of approximately $20 million, with the increase mainly impacting the Aerospace and Industrial segment driven by additional facility consolidations.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

As a result, we now expect approximately $12 million in total annualized savings, the majority of which will recognize in 2025. Regarding the updates to our outlook by segment, I'll begin in Aerospace and Industrial, where we continue to expect to grow 3%-5%, reflecting strong growth in our A&D markets and flat sales in general industrial.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Regarding the segment's profitability, and as a result of potential tariff impacts, we reduced the low end of the guidance range for operating income and margins slightly to reflect our net exposure. In the event that the latest tariffs are lessened or lifted, we still see a path to the high end of our original segment guide, driven by our expectation for higher sales and the savings generated by our restructuring actions.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

We now project operating income to increase 3%-8% and operating margin to be flat to up 60 basis points in range from 17%-17.6%. Next, in Defense Electronics, we now expect sales to grow 9%-11%, following the strong first-quarter performance and the strength of this business's record 2024 order book, which is driving solid growth across all A&D markets.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Regarding the segment's profitability, we now expect operating income growth of 15%-18% and operating margin expansion of 140% to 160 basis points to a new all-time high range of 26.3%-26.5%. The dramatic improvement in our outlook results from a combination of the higher top-line guide, the acceleration of our commercial and operational excellence initiatives, and better-than-anticipated savings resulting from our prior restructuring efforts.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

In Naval and Power, we now expect sales to grow 10%-12%, reflecting increased confidence following the strong first-quarter performance in naval defense and overall solid growth across the segment's defense and commercial markets. Regarding the segment's profitability, we now expect operating income growth of 14%-17% on the higher sales.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Of note, we're holding our margin guidance despite a tariff impact in this segment, which we plan to mitigate through higher sales, pricing, and Commercial Excellence initiatives. As a reminder, our outlook also reflects the contribution from Ultra Energy, which will initially be diluted to operating margin in its first year with Curtiss-Wright, as well as approximately $4 million in incremental investments to support internally funded R&D programs.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

To summarize our 2025 outlook, overall, we now expect total Curtiss-Wright operating income to grow 13%-16% and operating margin to range from 18.3%-18.5%, up 80-100 basis points. Next, to aid in your quarterly modeling of sales and operating margin, we expect second-quarter 2025 sales to grow by high single digits relative to the second quarter of 2024, reflecting increases in all three segments, and most notably driven by the timing of higher naval defense and commercial nuclear revenues in the Naval and Power segment.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Within the A&I segment, we expect operating margin to be up slightly compared with our second-quarter 2024 results, along with strong year-over-year growth and profitability within our Defense Electronics and Naval and Power segments. In summary, at the overall Curtiss-Wright level, we're expecting high teens second-quarter operating margin on strong sales growth.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Continuing with our financial outlook on slide seven and starting with our EPS guidance. Building upon our strong first-quarter performance, we now expect full-year 2025 diluted EPS to range from $12.45-$12.80, up 14%-17%, mainly reflecting improved sales and profitability within Defense Electronics. Aiding your quarterly EPS modeling, we expect second-quarter 2025 EPS to reflect low double-digit growth sequentially relative to our strong first-quarter results.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

We then expect modest sequential EPS growth over the remainder of 2025 based on the timing of strong first-half revenues, with the fourth-quarter EPS being our strongest. And lastly, turning to free cash flow, in Q1, while we experienced our typical outflow, we delivered a solid year-over-year improvement of 5% driven by the strong growth in earnings.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Overall, we had a good start to the year, and that provides us with confidence to raise our full-year free cash flow projections to a new range of $495 million-$515 million, up 2% to 7% over 2024. And as a reminder, our outlook includes an increase in capital expenditures of nearly $20 million year-over-year relative to the midpoint of our guide as we continue to invest in support of our future growth. Of note, we also remain on track to deliver a healthy free cash flow conversion rate in excess of 105% again this year, which remains in line with our long-term targets. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Lynn.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you, Chris. And turning to slide eight, as we have discussed today, our strategy continues to build momentum.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

While we remain cautious in light of the uncertain geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, Curtiss-Wright remains well-positioned to deliver strong, profitable growth again in 2025. Our execution during the first quarter is a perfect illustration of how we are focused on managing Curtiss-Wright's consolidated portfolio, which in turn supports our revised outlook targeting record financial performance across all major metrics this year.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

I'm particularly excited about the team's ability to target robust operating margin expansion of 80 to 100 basis points to nearly 18.5% and to generate at least $500 million in free cash flow this year. Overall, the team continues to deliver at a high level in support of our three-year objectives provided at last May's investor day. Next, regarding our capital allocation, Curtiss-Wright maintains a very healthy balance sheet supporting our disciplined and strategic approach to capital deployment.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

While we continue to foster significant financial flexibility to pursue acquisitions and continued share repurchase, we're also driving steady investments in our systems and infrastructure, which supports the team's efforts to capture positions on both current and next-generation platforms across our A&D and commercial businesses. Finally, as I look across our operations, we remain very well-positioned to capture the medium and long-term secular growth trends across our end markets.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

I'll highlight a few examples, and starting with defense, we believe the fundamentals of our industry remain strong, and Curtiss-Wright is poised to grow in all facets of our defense end markets. The passage of the FY25 budget, even when considering a full-year continuing resolution, helps remove some uncertainty while still allowing for critical new program starts.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Further, we are encouraged by the release of the initial FY26 budget, which includes the benefit of budget reconciliation to drive a total defense spending of more than $1 trillion, which would reflect strong year-over-year growth of more than 13%. Given our alignment across many of the platforms and priorities in those bills, including shipbuilding, missile defense, and air superiority, we expect our defense businesses to be well-positioned entering into 2026.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Turning to our world-class Defense Electronics portfolio, which remains a growing and very profitable business for Curtiss-Wright, we take pride in being an industry-leading supplier of commercial off-the-shelf embedded computing technology. We continuously invest in research and development to maintain our technological leadership, stay ahead of our customers' needs, and speed the delivery of next-generation technology to the battlefield.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

This includes our alignment to rugged, modular, open systems approach or MOSA-based solutions to accelerate the development of leading-edge computing technologies into multi-platform solutions. In addition, through our Fabric100 product line, this ecosystem of very high-performance processors, network switches, and processing units such as GPU and FPGA modules brings state-of-the-art expertise to enable faster data communication capabilities for sensor and mission processing applications.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Through our recent alignment with NVIDIA, their OEM partner program, Curtiss-Wright is integrating NVIDIA's cutting-edge AI technology into rugged, deployable systems that bring commercial innovation to the tactical edge. Today, with the markets we serve, we are the only company to hold the distinction covering the three major competencies: embedded computing, networking, and AI, reinforcing Curtiss-Wright's ability to meet the growing demand for higher performance and advanced processing solutions across our customer base.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Next, in commercial aerospace, and as Chris alluded to earlier, we have traditionally served the aerospace and defense markets with our Fortress, ruggedized cockpit voice and data recorder solutions, essentially the black box used in aviation. More recently, we build upon our commercial successes and were awarded a contract to support the DOD T-6 Texan primary training fleet.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

We have also aligned with Honeywell to develop critical technology mandates for longer recording capability in commercial aviation, which well exceeds the current standards for only two hours of recorded audio. Our jointly developed flight recorder innovation complies with both the FAA and the European Aviation Safety Agency, or EASA, mandates and allows us to support our OEM customers, including Boeing and others still in pursuit, as well as the airlines as they prepare to implement this critical upgrade.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

In addition, the FAA's Reauthorization Act of 2024 applies to both new OEM installations as well as retrofit applications in the U.S., providing Curtiss-Wright with an opportunity to serve thousands of registered aircraft. Further, order activity supporting these efforts has been accelerating since late 2024 and has begun to translate into meaningful revenues for Defense Electronics this year.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Lastly, in commercial nuclear, we have steadily communicated our vast opportunities for growth in this market and are well-positioned to provide continued value to our shareholders over the near, medium, and long term. Curtiss-Wright's dedication and expertise to safeguarding existing operating reactors provides us with strong, immediate opportunities for growth. Beyond the aftermarket, we remain well-positioned with Westinghouse and their pursuits to construct new AP1000 power plants globally as they move closer to production orders from Poland and Bulgaria.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

At the same time, we continue to grow our presence with the leading designers of advanced and small modular reactors as current design and developments will begin to translate into prototypes and eventually into production units. Overall, Curtiss-Wright's technologies remain well-aligned globally to support the entire commercial nuclear lifecycle from the new build to the aftermarket for decades to come.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

These are some of the many exciting pursuits that we expect to support our pivot to growth strategy. In summary, I remain confident in Curtiss-Wright's ability to demonstrate strong, profitable growth this year. Our agility as an organization and drive for operational and Commercial Excellence runs deep, providing confidence in our proven ability to mitigate the impacts of economic uncertainty on our financials while leveraging our record order book and growing backlog to position us to drive strong returns for our shareholders. Thank you. At this time, I would like to open up today's conference call for questions.

[Operator]

The floor is now open for questions. At this time, if you have a question or comment, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question is answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing Star 2. We ask that you pick up your handset when posing your questions to provide optimal sound quality. Again, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. Thank you. And our first question will come from Peter Skibitski with Alembic Global. Please go ahead. Peter, your line is open.

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

I'm sorry. Good morning, Lynn, and Chris, and Jim. Very nice quarter.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you.

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

But wonder if we could start just a little more specificity on the tariff impact. Sounds like you can mitigate it pretty well.

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

But could you give us some details just in terms of the products impacted and how China plays into it? And the cost side sounds pretty well mitigated. But just on the sourcing, any concerns about sourcing in this tariff environment?

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Yes, it is. Thank you for that question, Pete. And it surely is a dynamic situation. But we have really been very purposeful in how we're approaching as a company. Quite a few months ago, we put together a tiger team, which was very cross-functional to really make sure we understood aspects of our contracts and, honestly, optionality we had to try and mitigate the tariffs. And so I'm really pleased. The numbers that Chris put forward of mitigating over $20 million of the potential impact is pretty impressive. And it's hats off to the team for being able to do that.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

There's a lot of hard work that has gone behind that, and that mitigation comes through a variety of avenues. It's a blend of operational outcomes and how we go about sourcing and supplying products to our customers. We learned a lot back in 2018 and put a lot of flexibility into our operational footprint at that time, so we'd be prepared if there was a similar situation, and so we didn't have to start from ground zero.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

That was really important, and pricing is also part of it, and that is something that we're very purposeful in talking to our customers about and working with them and being fairly transparent, and they're willing to work with us largely as we approach some targeted price increases for where we're seeing the tariffs. So a lot of hard work by the team to be able to achieve what we spoke about during our prepared remarks. And maybe with that, I'll turn it over to Chris to put a little more color on some parts of your question.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Sure. So you heard in the prepared remarks that roughly 20% of our product portfolio is subject to tariff risks. And the way you kind of break that down is you look across our defense markets. It represents 50% of our business today. Most of that's domestic sourcing. But where it's not, there are tariff exclusions for military products that allow us to effectively mitigate that exposure. Tariffs are not applied to service revenue today. That's roughly 15% of our total business. And then when we look across our non-U.S. sites to non-U.S. customers, today that's roughly 10%-15% of our business.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So within that 20%, the greatest pressure is certainly within the Aerospace and Industrial segment, mainly with industrial products like you saw back in that 2018, 2019 timeframe. But then also there's some processed product exposure within the Naval and Power segment. Stepping back and looking at what we're being tariffed on, really not a big impact in Canada and Mexico.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

The majority of those products are covered by USMCA, nothing material from existing tariffs. And then steel and aluminum tariff imports are low volume, and our largest components are really sourced domestic. So we feel good about the position and our guide in the full year.

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

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks, guys. And just one follow-up. You raised the commercial aerospace guide quite a bit for the year. And I'm just wondering, was the Boeing kind of return to production and accelerate production post-strike?

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

Was that a part of that, or was it all kind of the FAA safety mandate in terms of the recorder sales there? And I'm just wondering, how long should we expect the safety mandate-related sales to kind of drive revenue for you?

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Well, maybe I'll start off with the guide, and then just in terms of the longevity, I'll turn that back over to Lynn. But I want to be clear that the guidance increase that we made here on the call is entirely related to the new cockpit voice recorders. We do still have got some conservatism that's embedded within the guide. There's obviously a lot happening in commercial aerospace right now relative to Boeing and Airbus's supply chain. So we're trying to approach that situation cautiously. But we feel good about being able to increase our guide in this environment. And it's mainly the CVR.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

And picking up from what Chris just commented on, this is definitely a long-term sustainable revenue source for Curtiss-Wright. The FAA mandate gives airlines through the end of this decade to do the retrofit. And so we are really at the very beginning of that. And it's mandated in new production aircraft. And so this is an area that we are continuing to grow.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

We have a very solid position with Boeing, having received the various certifications for new and retrofit airlines back in the end of 2023. But it takes a while for these things to kick in. We're working very hard to receive certification across the Airbus A320 fleet. And there's a lot of work going on to receive certification across a lot of the regional jets that are also subject to the mandate.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

This is a very exciting portion of our business that has been building really even in 2024, but it doesn't get talked about a lot. And that's why we really wanted to bring it to the forefront as it really begins to see some really dynamic growth and bring it a bit more to the forefront during the call.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Good morning, everyone.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Hey, Kristine.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Nice to hear your voice. Yeah. Welcome back.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thanks. I'm back. Happy to send some pictures if you guys want.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Absolutely.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

She's seven months and just blowing raspberries all day long. She's a raspberry factory.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

All right.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

So, maybe starting on commercial nuclear, with the Trump administration and their approach to energy, has their approach on nuclear been more supportive to the degree you were expecting, or has there been a change? And so I just want to understand the outlook for U.S. nuclear. And then also the second piece is once we get out to the international orders, Poland and Bulgaria, how has this geopolitical environment and uncertainty with tariffs affected their plans to go build new nuclear power plants?

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So I would say we were cautiously positive before we moved to the new administration that there would be ongoing support. And that was largely based on the stances. We knew a lot of the cabinet members were very pro-nuclear. And so you could see that that was in the underpinnings of the people he put around himself.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

But I think it has played out maybe even better than we would have anticipated. And I give two examples. Secretary Wright was very much front and center in both a recent announcement in Poland that was extending their engineering contract to the end of the year, which will really be the final stage before construction contracts are awarded, and was front and center in Bulgaria with them declaring the site of their first AP1000 plant and their goal of being the first AP1000 plant in Europe jumping ahead of Poland.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So a little bit of a foot race is not a bad thing in our world. And I think every time you see the executive orders that come out across the U.S. about energy dominance, it always includes nuclear in a very positive way. So we feel very good about the support from this administration.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

And even some of the things about ties to deregulation and making the NRC more efficient will also fundamentally lend themselves to the build-out. So there's a lot of different angles to it, but it's positive from what we see today.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you for that. And shifting gears to shipbuilding, there's a clear shipbuilding emphasis from this administration. But starting out new programs take time and building ships take time. How do you think this plays out? And how does that flow get to you? And when would you start expecting to see significant orders to come through? You are generally in the earlier side of those projects.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Yeah. It's a fair point. These industries don't turn on a dime. I do think it's interesting to see that obviously there's great support for shipbuilding and what we see in both the reconciliation bill and the skinny budgets, so to speak.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

A lot of money for the industrial base. I think one point that's noteworthy is we commented in our investor day back in May of 2024 that we had received $15 million over the prior few years for industrial based funding.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

That's up to $21 million as of today, and we have a lot of money in pursuit, so that's maybe the more immediate here and now, but we also are seeing opportunities to take work share as there's a real push to get the existing fleet more operational, and it is leading to opening up some new opportunities for ourselves, as well as the ongoing work that we have across Virginia, Columbia, the aircraft carriers, and one subtlety that was in the reconciliation bill was putting the second Virginia Class back in 2027, so that's just a good thing, so it will build over time.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

But we're very conscious of things we can do in the near term to try and win business as we build our long-term positions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

[Myles Walton, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Thanks for joining. Good morning. I was wondering if you could comment on the Defense Electronics margin performance or maybe the absolute EBIT dollar performance. I think the rest of the year is implied to be below the run rate of the first quarter, which would be pretty unusual given your historical tendency in that segment. Is there anything that was accelerated in the first quarter, or is this more conservatism for the rest of the year?

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So thank you for that question, Myles.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

I guess I'd like to honestly start and back up for a second and talk about the Corporation in total because I think it's important to set the stage about how we're viewing our guidance. And the raise that we did put forward is we started the year, and I will definitely come to the details of what you asked. So if you give me two seconds, I'm not dodging your question.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Okay. So we started out with a reasonable amount of conservatism in our initial guide this year. I mean, there was talks of tariffs, what was going to happen with the Continuing Resolution, recession fears, just a lot of different things going on, and some things going on inside the business, specifically in Defense Electronics with our restructuring and setting the stage for growth and ERP implementation.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So with that, we took a pretty cautionary tone to our guidance. And I will say we've raised our guidance by thinking that we can more clearly see line of sight on some of those things. But there's definitely still areas, and Chris mentioned one just a moment ago, where we are still, we know, we have conservatism in our guidance.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

And whether that's commercial aerospace, which you just mentioned a minute or two ago, what's going on in general industrial with recessionary signals and our risk with tariffs and how that's going to play out. Within Defense Electronics, we're doing a full ERP implementation across that group. And we have a lot of big projects going on in Naval and Power.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

I'm not throwing up any alarms on any of these things, but we try and make sure we are putting forth numbers that we will be able to deliver on to the street. That's important to us. It's how we operate as a management team. So with that, there is conservatism across the board in what we've put forward. But there's also a lot of things that all the ongoing programs around Commercial Excellence and operational excellence.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

They're bearing fruit. Turning those to talk about Defense Electronics specifically, there's a blend of things. Maybe I'll ask Chris to speak about a few of the things that are driving the margin. Then I would like to come back and touch on pricing.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Yeah. So absolutely. We're trying to approach this cautiously as we move through the rest of the year. But Myles, specifically, as you look at the Q1 margin, we talked a little bit about the mix that's going on. We're certainly seeing some expansion from commercial and operational excellence. Also in Q1, we had some FX benefits. So we saw the U.S. dollar strengthen against key currencies. And using our five-bank forecast, we're looking out across the remainder of the year.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

We're expecting some of that FX benefit to go away as the dollar weakens against some of those currencies. We expect research and development to ramp as we progress through the rest of the year. And then it's important to know we've talked about this in past calls. The sequential ramp in Defense Electronics, this team has really been working hard to try to balance that out and to not have it be such a fourth-quarter spike.

[Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

So as you look at Defense Electronics over the remainder of the year, it will be very modest sequential growth for that segment. So it's really the combination of very modest sequential growth and those other things that I just talked about.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Yeah. And the last element that is meaningful, but I want to be very purposeful in how I speak to it, is our ability to drive pricing across the products that we provide to our customers in this segment. And we're very focused on delivering a fantastic value to our customers and being a rock-solid supplier that is there for them in all aspects of how they take advantage of our products and work them into their systems and overall solutions. And with that, we launched the operational growth platform back at the beginning of my tenure. Commercial Excellence was a big part of that.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

That's really understanding the value you're bringing to customers and pricing appropriately and keeping in mind competition and a win-win with your customer and all those things. So it's not just all about margin, but it's about charging for the value you bring. And I think the team has done a great job to evolve over the past few years and to be able to understand the value they're bringing and price appropriately. And that's also part of the margins that we're receiving in that team. All right.

[Myles Walton, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Thanks for the color. And then one follow-up, if I could. The book-to-bill for the company was 1.26. Was there much of a differentiated by segment, or if you can just provide book-to-bill by segment?

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Sure. Yeah. Within the Aerospace and Industrial segment, Myles, it was a 1.1 time, approximately 1.1 time, book-to-bill in the quarter.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

We had great commercial aerospace orders for the quarter. Within Defense Electronics, it was about a one-time book-to-bill on 16% sales growth. Not anything really unusual here. We obviously started off the first quarter with a CR that kind of created some slowness in terms of the order patterns.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

But then as you look back at Q1 of 2024, there were some pretty big lumpy orders that had come on in at that point in time for multi-year orders that had come in at that time for Defense Electronics. So pipeline still looks great as we look ahead. Within Naval and Power, it was a 1.6 times book-to-bill, very strong naval order quarter.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

You know that that can be somewhat lumpy, but I think when you start to take it into context of what we did last year with naval orders, what we're seeing this year, it's really helping to drive our expectations for these very strong first-half revenues. A lot of material timing in there, but very strong first-half revenues for Naval and Power this year.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Jason Gursky with Citi. Please go ahead.

[Jason Gursky, U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst at Citi]

Good morning, everybody. Hey, Jason. I've been asking everybody this quarter a similar question around the change that's afoot in Washington, particularly around acquisition reform and the proposal to rewrite FAR and DFARS.

[Jason Gursky, U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst at Citi]

I'm just kind of curious if you can maybe step in and provide some context from your perspective on what you think is in front of us on that front and the implications both for the industry and for Curtiss-Wright in particular. Is this going to end up being a positive, a negative, kind of a neutral? I'm just kind of curious how you're thinking about the prospects of what seems to be some pretty significant efforts to reform the way that the government is going to buy goods and services going forward. Thanks.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you for that question. It's definitely something there's been a lot of activity in, so a lot of executive orders.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

And many of them very good in the line, broadly speaking, before we talk specifically about acquisition around shipbuilding and energy production and all areas that should be really strong forces for Curtiss-Wright's growth going forward. I think it's interesting. As we are digging into this, I very much feel it's going to be a strong positive for Curtiss-Wright. And there's a couple of avenues of that.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

A lot of where the focus has been the large cost-plus type contracts that keep growing in size. Curtiss-Wright's almost exclusively a firm-fixed-price contracting across our defense work. And that's very much where there's pushes to move to. One of the things that's buried down in those executive orders, we're comfortable taking business in that approach, and we deliver great value.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

And I always want to make that point that I really do know that we provide a great value to our government for the contracts that they afford to give to Curtiss-Wright. And so that's the most fundamental basis of saying why I think we will win. But that's one of the pushes, and that's how we like to do business.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Another big focus out of some of the EOs is a push towards more commercial practices and more commercial buying practices. And really, our Defense Electronics segment, that is, they go to market commercially. So we very much know how to go about working commercially with the government and know how to do that. And I think it's great to see that there'll be more buying practices pushed in that direction.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

And we'll look to see where else in our portfolio we can leverage commercial pricing and drive more business that way. And I think it'll be great for the customer, great for our Defense Department, and great for Curtiss-Wright. And so those are two things. The other thing that's in there is something that's called the OTAs or the Other Transaction Authority.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

And it's an area where Curtiss-Wright, we don't have an extensive experience in it, but we absolutely have worked or set up through the partnerships to be able to take OTA money. And we'll absolutely are seeing that part of the executive orders and building out to make sure we're ready as money flows through those OTAs that we have the fundamental relationships that we're able to take those types of partnerships.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So I feel proud of the value we bring to the Defense Department for what we do. And I think as they look to drive efficiencies and value fundamentally in how they spend their money, I think Curtiss-Wright will be at the forefront of winning for that.

[Myles Walton, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

That's helpful. I appreciate it. Thanks, Myles Walton with Wolfe.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you. Thank you, Jason.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from Louie DiPalma with William Blair. Please go ahead.

[Louie DiPalma, Research Analyst at William Blair]

Great. I was wondering, you discussed your exposure to different drone platforms with the budget evaluations done on the broader FPGA code and then the funding for unmanned platforms. I think you mentioned the Triton, but can you discuss exposure to next-generation drone platforms?

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Yeah. Sorry, we're not able to hear you. Would you mind repeating that?

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

You're just kind of coming through mumbled. I'm not sure what's going on with the line.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So sorry about that, Louie.

[Operator]

Okay. We'll move on next to Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please go ahead.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Good morning, everyone.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Hey. Hey, Nathan. Good morning.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Good morning. Just a couple of follow-up questions. You said the commercial aerospace guidance was raised solely on that voice recorder incremental business that you're winning. I think it works out to be about $12 million or something for 2025. But you also talked about this being the very beginning and extending out through at least the end of this decade. Could you give us a bit more color on what you think that the market potential there could be over the next few years? Obviously, I would imagine it's growing fairly quickly given that you're right at the start of that.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Yeah. I mean, we are definitely on, and it clearly was part of our forecast at the beginning of the year.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

As Chris said, it was the entirety of why we raised our commercial aerospace as we're getting more clarity with our partnership with Honeywell and how the ramp is beginning to become visible. And it's a little. There's still some undetermined. It's going to continue to grow for many years to come. And we're in the process of getting certification across the Airbus platforms that will happen probably in 2026.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So that's still a future dynamic that's coming and across some of the regional jets. So it's a little hard at this point until we've really sized the opportunity and figured out where we're going to win and have content to put a dollar figure to it. But I think I will agree with you. We are at the very beginning of what's going to be a long, steady ramp for that product family.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Fair enough. I'll ask you again in a couple of quarters' time. Now, in the Defense Electronics margins, I know you got asked about the progression through the year. It's obviously significantly higher than where you started, and based on all of the things you talked about, it doesn't sound like any of those are one-time in nature for 2025.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Your Commercial Excellence restructuring, higher levels of volume that don't sound like they're going away either. There's no reason why we think there's any step down next year or something like that in the Defense Electronics margin. This is kind of a new higher baseline that we're starting from now, and then maybe you could just comment on what kind of incremental margins we should expect in that business? Thanks.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So I'll ask Chris to put a little more color on the Defense Electronics margins, but we're really not putting forward a prediction for 2026 at this time. And I can appreciate the question and wanting to know, but we're going to take it a year at a time, and we have our current guide. We've updated that, and we feel good about it.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

But I would agree. There is not a one-time thing across that product portfolio, but we really do like to afford ourselves the flexibility to invest as we see a strong return for the company going forward. And so that's really the caution around trying to lock in or foreshadow margins coming in and out here.

[K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Yeah. And I would just say in terms of incremental margins for that segment, absence or any investments or other things that we're doing, you're going to see that in that 30%-35% range. I mean, that is the pivot to growth, grow your top line, and free up that funding for investment beneath, right? So teams doing a great job. And all those things you talked about are absolutely things that we're excited about and see as we look out into the future.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Thanks very much for taking my questions.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you, Jason.

[Operator]

Thank you. Once again, if you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad at this time. And we'll move next back to Louie DiPalma with William Blair.

[Louie DiPalma, Research Analyst at William Blair]

Lynn, Chris, and Jim, good morning.

[Louie DiPalma, Research Analyst at William Blair]

I hope you can hear me more clearly this time, but I was just wondering, how are the SMR content partnerships progressing?

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

No, thank you. And yes, you're coming through loud and clear, so glad we could get your question. So they're definitely progressing, and I think you made reference to ramping development dollars across TerraPower and X-energy for some of the projects we're working on there. And that's just indicative of we're ever becoming more clear in where we're going to bring products to market with them. Our work with Rolls-Royce from the Ultra Energy acquisition, we talked about that being critical to helping us even extend our partnership with them. That is going very well.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

So it's all steady as she goes, and we're beginning to be able to more clearly see the designs take form and line of sight that we will be moving to prototyping here in the next 12-24 months and working with them to get their first plants online. So it's exciting.

[Louie DiPalma, Research Analyst at William Blair]

Excellent. That's it for me. Thanks, Lynn. Thanks, everyone.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you, Louie.

[Louie DiPalma, Research Analyst at William Blair]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

[Myles Walton, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Thanks for the follow-up. Lynn, you mentioned Westinghouse's press releases in the last week or two regarding Poland and Bulgaria. And one of the dates that Westinghouse referred to was the engineering procurement and construction agreement by the end of 2025. If that timeline stuck, would you expect to have a construction contract of your own by the end of 2025 or early 2026?

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Yeah.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

I mean, I think I'm really pleased to be able to say we three years ago started seeing three to five years and have whittled that down. And we're very much saying we expect in order in 2026 at some point in time and by the end of the year, but it could come mid-year. So I feel like we believe we're triangulating in on that timeframe, but I wouldn't say by the end of this year.

[Myles Walton, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Okay. That was it. Thanks so much.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. And at this time, there are no further questions. So I'd like to turn the floor back over to Lynn Bamford, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, for additional or closing remarks.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you again on the road or at our next quarter results call. Thank you.

[Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO at Curtiss-Wright Corporation]

Have a great day.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• Lynn Bamford, Chair and CEO
• K. Christopher Farkas, EVP and CFO
• Jim Ryan, VP of Investor Relations

Analysts

• Kristine T. Liwag, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley
• Pete Skibitski, Director, Aerospace and Defense Equity Research at Alembic Global Advisors
• Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel
• Jason Gursky, U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst at Citi
• Louie DiPalma, Research Analyst at William Blair
• Myles Walton, Managing Director at Wolfe Research