Kaiser Aluminum Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 24, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Company raised full-year EBITDA outlook to 10–15% year-over-year growth following stronger-than-expected Q2 results and sustained margins above 19% in H1 2025.
  • Negative Sentiment: Free cash flow guidance for 2025 was lowered to $50–70 million from ~$100 million due to higher working capital tied to metal price increases and tariffs.
  • Negative Sentiment: Startup issues at the new Warwick coating line delayed full-run rate to late Q4, leading to a slight downward revision of H2 packaging shipments and conversion revenue outlook.
  • Positive Sentiment: Trentwood Phase 7 expansion remains on schedule and on budget, set to add aerospace and general engineering capacity early in Q4 2025.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Aerospace conversion revenue fell 5% on a 4% shipment decline amid OEM destocking, though defense and space demand stayed strong and inventories should normalize by year-end.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Kaiser Aluminum Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Kaiser Aluminum Corporation's Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kim Orlando, with ADDO Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Kimberly Orlando
Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Kaiser Aluminum's Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. If you have not seen a copy of our earnings release, please visit the Investor Relations page of our website at kaiseraluminum.com. We have also posted a PDF version of the slide presentation for this call. Joining me on the call today are Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Keith Harvey and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Neal West.

Kimberly Orlando
Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations

Before we begin, I'd like to refer you to the first four slides of our presentation and remind you that the statements made by management and the information contained in this presentation that constitute forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations. For a summary of specific risk factors that could cause results to differ materially from the forward looking statements, please refer to the company's earnings release and reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's annual report on Form 10 ks for the full year ended 12/31/2024. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward looking statements to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company's expectations. In addition, we have included non GAAP financial information in our discussion. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the earnings release and in the appendix of the presentation.

Kimberly Orlando
Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations

Reconciliations of certain forward looking non GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures are not provided because certain items required for such reconciliations are outside of our control and or cannot be reasonably predicted or provided without unreasonable effort. Any reference to EBITDA in our discussion today means adjusted EBITDA, which excludes non run rate items for which we have provided reconciliations in the appendix. Further, slide five contains definitions of terms and measures that will be commonly used throughout today's presentation. At the conclusion of the company's presentation, we will open the call for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Keith Harvey. Keith?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thanks, Kim, and thank you all for joining us today. Turning to Slide seven for our second quarter update. I'm pleased to report that Kaiser delivered second quarter results that exceeded our expectations, leading us to increase our full year EBITDA outlook. While favorable metal pricing provided a positive tailwind, our performance reflects deeper strength in our underlying business fundamentals, which continue to improve across the board. Importantly, our performance in our key end markets remained in line with our projections and we sustained margin levels above 19% in the first half of twenty twenty five, roughly 180 basis points stronger than in the prior year same period.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Continued strong pricing and an improving product mix were the primary drivers of strength, along with our persistent emphasis on enhancing operating efficiencies and cost management. We remain focused on our long term goal for our consolidated businesses to deliver mid to high 20% EBITDA margins, and we expect continued progress towards that goal to become increasingly evident as we advance through demand cycles and bring our investments fully online over the next several quarters. It's important to note that our working capital requirements, especially those tied to metal pricing, came in above what we anticipated when we originally provided guidance in February. Neil will speak in more detail shortly, but based on current projections, we now expect free cash flow for full year 2025 to be between 50,000,000 and $70,000,000 Meanwhile, customer sentiment was impacted by tariff related uncertainty during the quarter, particularly in our automotive segment. That said, conditions moderated late in second quarter, and we saw improvements in overall demand.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We do recognize, however, that the broader policy and geopolitical landscape remains fluid and continues to introduce pockets of volatility in ordering patterns throughout the business. Given this uncertainty, especially as it relates to tariffs, we continue to believe the impact of projected tariff levels will continue to have a neutral to slightly favorable impact on our earnings. Let's now turn to our growth strategy. As we look ahead, we continue to make meaningful progress on our strategic initiatives at our Trentwood and Warrick rolling mills. These two platforms represent a significant portion of our total conversion revenue dollars and the outlook across our aerospace packaging and general engineering end markets continues to be strong.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Each investment is foundational to the next phase of Kaiser's margin expansion, which we anticipate will continue to improve in 2026. Starting with the Trentwood Phase seven investment, the project is advancing on schedule, on budget and its completion remains closely aligned with supporting the growing demand for both aerospace and general engineering plate products in 2026 and beyond. We expect the additional production capacity to come online early in the fourth quarter of this year. Next, I'll turn to an update on our new coating line investment at our Warwick rolling mill. We have moved to the material qualifications phase of the startup process, albeit later than initially planned.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And while the line is not yet running at full slated capacity, we expect continued improvement in line speeds and customer qualifications throughout the remainder of the year. Accordingly, we now anticipate reaching our full run rate in late fourth quarter of this year and expect the revised timing of qualifications to have a slightly negative impact on our second half twenty twenty five packaging shipments and conversion revenue dollars outlook, which I will discuss later in the call. Above all, I want to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to quality and being a best in class supplier for coated products. The equipment we've deployed at our Warwick operations is instrumental to maintaining our position as North America's leading coated supplier for aluminum packaging solutions. While we are all anxious for the new capacity to become fully available, we will not compromise on our standards or bypass any critical steps during the qualification phase with customers.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Finally, I'm proud to share that we finalized one of our key outstanding multiyear packaging customer contracts for coated products. This agreement reflects not only the confidence our customers place in us, but also the strength of the underlying market and our leadership position within it. In summary, operations continue to improve. We are strengthening our position in our key markets, and we continue to invest for long term value creation. With that, let me hand the call over to Neil for further detail on our second quarter results. Neil?

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Thank you, Keith, and good morning, everyone. I'll now turn to Slide nine for an overview of our shipments and conversion revenue. Conversion revenue for the second quarter was $374,000,000 an increase of approximately $5,000,000 or 1% compared to the prior year period. Looking at each of our end markets in detail, aerospace and high strength conversion revenue totaled $127,000,000 down $6,000,000 or approximately 5%, primarily due to a 4% decline in shipments over last year. As previously discussed, prior year disruptions in commercial aircraft OEM production patterns have impacted the aluminum supply chain, which is now moving through a destocking period.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Importantly, demand for our other aerospace and high strength applications, including business jet, defense and space has remained strong. Packaging conversion revenue totaled $130,000,000 up $11,000,000 or approximately 9% year over year on improved mix of higher value added products. Shipments for the quarter, while up 8% sequentially, declined 3% over the prior year, primarily due to the mix shift in product deliveries as we continue to ramp the new Rolled Coat line and qualify products for customers. As discussed, the underlying demand for our products remains strong and we are working closely with our customers as we move through this transition. General engineering conversion revenue for the second quarter was $86,000,000 up $3,000,000 or 3% year over year on a 5% increase in shipments.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Broader market factors, including reshoring opportunities, continue to create a favorable operating environment in the general engineering end market, driving higher demand and solid pricing for both our long and plate products. And finally, automotive conversion revenue of $32,000,000 declined 4% year over year on a 15% decrease in shipments, primarily due to tariff related customer uncertainties affecting the automotive industry. The lower demand has been partially offset by improved pricing and product mix. Additional details and conversion revenue shipments by applications can be found in the appendix of this presentation. Now moving to Slide 10.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Reported operating income for the second quarter was $38,000,000 an increase of approximately $2,000,000 from the thirty six million dollars in the prior year quarter. As a reminder, the 2024 included operating non run rate charges of approximately $9,000,000 primarily associated with restructuring charges. After adjusting for the operating non run rate charges, our second quarter twenty twenty five adjusted operating income was down $7,000,000 from the prior year quarter. Our effective tax rate for the second quarter was 22% compared to 23% in the second quarter twenty twenty four. For the full year 2025, we continue to expect our effective tax rate before discrete items to be in the low to mid-twenty percent range before taking into account any impact related to the new tax bill recently signed into law.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Additionally, we anticipate that 2025 cash tax payments for federal, state and foreign taxes will be in the five dollars to $7,000,000 range. Reported net income for the second quarter was $23,000,000 or $1.41 net income per diluted share compared to net income of $19,000,000 or $1.15 net income per diluted share in the prior year quarter. After adjusting for non operating, non run rate benefit of approximately $3,000,000 net of tax related to insurance settlements associated with prior year claims, adjusted net income for the second quarter twenty twenty five was $20,000,000 or $1.21 adjusted net income per diluted share. This compares to adjusted net income of $27,000,000 or $1.63 adjusted net income per diluted share in the prior year period. Now turning to Slide 11.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $68,000,000 down approximately $6,000,000 from the prior year period. Our second quarter twenty twenty five results benefit from positive sales momentum, reflecting an increase in price and improved mix of higher value added products. This was offset by higher operating costs, primarily associated with start up expense on the fourth row coat line and timing of certain major maintenance projects as compared to the second quarter of twenty twenty four. As we continue to move through the start of our new row coat line at work and complete the Phase seven investment at Trentwood, we expect operating costs to stabilize and improve. Now turning to the discussion of our balance sheet and cash flow.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

On 06/30/2025, total cash of approximately $13,000,000 and approximately $525,000,000 of borrowing availability in our revolving credit facility equated to a strong liquidity position of approximately $538,000,000 There were $33,000,000 of borrowings under our revolving credit facility as of the quarter end. As a reminder, our senior notes interest costs are fixed at $48,000,000 annually and we have no notes maturing until 2028. As of the end of the second quarter, our net debt leverage ratio increased 30 basis points to 4.2 times from 3.9 times at the end of the first quarter. Turning to capital allocation and free cash flow. We generated cash flow from operations of $16,000,000 during the second quarter with our capital expenditures totaling $44,000,000 For the full year 2025, we expect continue to expect capital expenditures to be in a range of $120,000,000 to $130,000,000 including some remaining costs for the fourth coating line project at Ork and completion of our Phase seven expansion at Trentwood.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

As we entered the year, we anticipate a free cash flow for the full year 2025 of approximately $100,000,000 While we have successfully reduced the total pounds of inventory, which was a significant contributor to our projections, recent trade policy actions and the material impact that has had on our working capital utilization have led us to revise our expectation. As such, we are now projecting to generate approximately $50,000,000 to $70,000,000 of free cash flow for the full year of 2025. Finally, on July 15, we announced that our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.77 per common share, reinforcing the confidence in our long term strategy to drive increasingly profitable growth and maximizing shareholder value. I'll now turn the call back over to Keith to discuss our outlook. Keith?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thanks, Neil. As we continue throughout the year, we're encouraged by the momentum we see across our business and the clarity we're gaining in our markets. Let me now walk you through our outlook by end market. Starting on Slide 13 with Aerospace and High Strength. The pace of commercial aircraft deliveries stepped up again in the second quarter.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We're seeing continued signs that the supply chain is recovering. And while select areas such as engines and interiors are still experiencing disruption, those pockets are steadily moderating. Aluminum inventory at the customers remain elevated in the channel for now, but as build rates ramp, we expect that inventory to be absorbed rapidly. Demand in defense, space and business jet remained consistently strong throughout the quarter. Longer term, we believe Kaiser's positioning remains highly advantaged as a leading global supplier of aluminum products to these end markets, and our capital investments support the durability of that leadership well into the future.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Accordingly, our outlook for both shipments and conversion revenue remains unchanged from February for a projected decline of approximately 5% to 7% year over year due mainly to inventory destocking underway in the large commercial jet supply chain. Let's move on to Packaging on Slide 14. We are refining our outlook for Packaging conversion revenue to increase year over year by approximately 15% to 20%, while shipments are expected to decline approximately 3% to 5% year over year. I want to be very clear. This adjustment is driven entirely by the commissioning time line for our new coating equipment and underperformance from our coating converters who have struggled to meet their commitments to us through the first half of the year.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We expect improved performance in all areas as we progress into the second half of the year. As previously discussed, North American demand far exceeds available supply and that dynamic is expected to continue well beyond 2025. Our team remains fully committed to accelerating increased capacity throughput from our value stream to meet the growing needs of our customers well into the future. Turning now to General Engineering on Slide 15. Our performance continues to be strong.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Shipments are up mid single digits and pricing remains solid, supporting growth in conversion revenue. While tariffs are not directly impacting our volume, we are seeing some month to month variability in order patterns as customers adjust to the implications of the Midwest premium. Broadly speaking, both plate and long products have shown robust activity, making the 2025 one of our strongest periods since 2018, aside from the unusual activity in the post COVID environment in the twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two period. Looking ahead to the second half, we expect continued strength in shipments supported by a favorable mix shift toward plate products, which is a positive for conversion revenue. We continue to expect full year shipments and conversion revenue to be up year over year by 5% to 10%.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Finally, turning to Automotive on slide 16. Our outlook for the remainder of the year remains steady. Industry build rates have fluctuated with tariff developments, starting the year with expectations of about 15,700,000 units. Current build rates are expected closer now to the mid-fourteen million range. Despite the macro uncertainty, Kaiser's exposure is concentrated in key platforms, particularly SUVs and light trucks, where demand has remained healthy.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

As a result, we expect our second half shipments and conversion revenue to hold steady compared to the first half of twenty twenty five. Now turning to our summary outlook on Slide 17. In summary, the outlook for our end markets remained intact despite the uncertain operating environment. Based on first half results, our total conversion revenue guidance for 2025 remains unchanged at a 5% to 10% year over year improvement. However, our margin performance is slightly better than we initially anticipated.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And as a result, we're raising our full year EBITDA outlook by 5% versus our outlook in February to now reflect growth of 10% to 15% year over year. This marks a strong step forward and reflects both solid execution and a resilient market backdrop along with favorable tailwinds provided by sharply rising metal prices to date. Importantly, 2025 will be a turning point for Kaiser towards meeting our long term conversion revenue and EBITDA margin goals. And this is without fully benefiting from the targeted investments and strategic positioning we pursued over the past several years. With momentum accelerating for full deployment of our investments in 2026, along with continued strength in our end markets, we look forward to showcasing the full potential of these businesses in the years ahead.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

With that, I will now open the call to any questions you may have. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Yes. Hey, good morning, Keith, everyone. Have a few questions Maybe starting with packaging. I guess, what's driving the delay in the commissioning and what's giving you confidence in the current target? Guess, is the sole driver of lower packaging guidance?

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

You mentioned, I think, some coding delays. I'm just trying to get a sense for the shipping new guidance you're providing.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Yes. Ed, thanks, Bill. Good morning. What we're seeing is what you might imagine is typical startup issues on a fairly complex large piece of equipment. We have got the equipment in line.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We have begun the qualification periods, but qualifications are are quite important here. You know, they're they're typically a three phase type process before you're fully qualified, and you can open the line up for regular runs. Of course, we've got multiple different coatings that we're trying to qualify at the same time. And then you're debugging that equipment, which is, you know, we're just getting it up to rate. So, all of that has caused us to say, hey, we're still looking for full outlook here at the end of the year, but that ramp up is taking a little longer than expected than what we've discussed in February.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

You know, I'll come on the back end of that and say, look, demand continues to be very strong and and, you know, we're we're we're moving through those processes. But but we expect volume on packaging, is going to be down about 3,500,000 or percent on the volume piece and the conversion revenue is still going to be up 15% to 20%. Now we've also I mentioned in my comments that we've had some underperformance by some of our converters that their performance hasn't been as we expected. And so therefore, that's added on to some of our misses and some of our revisioning of our re outlooking of our volume output for the year. We have expected recovery coming on there.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We need it. The market's strong and we expect all that, as I said, to improve in the second half of the year.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Okay. Thanks for that. And then it was mentioned that the aero inventories are beginning to rightsize, but yet inventories are still elevated. I guess at this stage, what visibility you have here? I guess when do you see or foresee the destocking coming to an end?

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

We're hearing obviously kind of positive news flow from the commercial aerospace side in terms of, you know, their own ramps, but wanted to get a sense for for when you think this destocking thing will run its course.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Yeah. Well, on that on that front, Bill, we, you know, we continue to to welcome the good news that comes from the large jet manufacturers. Obviously, they're continuing to ramp. That ramp is consistent and holding. We're hopeful for another ramp increase announcement toward the end of the year.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Obviously, the faster we ramp up, the the more healthier the supply chain will be and and and that inventory bubble can dissipate. Right now, we're on track for what we expected for the year. I expect 2026 to be in much better shape. And I think we'll have some more visibility on that. That won't be necessarily reflective in our third quarter outlook build.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

You know, Trentwood is going down for the for the bulk of the quarter, and a good bit of that impact could be shipments. So it it won't necessarily be reflective that that's happening. But but with us delivering less in the third quarter, you know, that's gonna help that bubble as well. So at this point, I think that bubble is going to dissipate by the end of this year as expected. And if demand is as we expect in 2026 at this point, we should be well through that and the supply chain should be ramping up pretty rapidly to meet the increased demand.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Yeah. Thanks for that. And then maybe before jumping back in the queue, kind of tying in some of your previous comments, how should we think about the cadence of EBITDA in the back half of the year? Will the third quarter be a trough based off what you mentioned about Trentwood and your prior comments around packaging?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Well, quite frankly, we're seeing aerospace will be down slightly in the third quarter compared to the second quarter and even the first half run rate. It'll be down slightly period to period, but we're gonna see that ramp come up on packaging to offset that. The conversion revenue will start to offset any of that. So I I I expected the trough in the second quarter. And our performance and we mentioned the tailwinds from metal and and then really the performance we had was was better than we expected.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

So I I believe the second half is going to look pretty much as we predicted when we talked about it in February. So we're reiterating what the second half looks like, Bill, in this quarter.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Equity Research at JP Morgan

Okay. Great, Keith. Thanks for that. I'll pass pass along.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thanks, Bill. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Sullivan with Benchmark Company. Please proceed with your question.

Josh Sullivan
Equity Research Analyst - Industrial Technology, Aerospace & Defense at The Benchmark Company LLC

Hey, good morning.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Hi, Josh.

Josh Sullivan
Equity Research Analyst - Industrial Technology, Aerospace & Defense at The Benchmark Company LLC

Just a question on the aerospace inventory levels. At this point, is that inventory being held at the distributor customers or is it at the OEMs?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Well, I think the it earlier in the year, late last year, it was in both parts of the of the supply chain. But I think what we've seen through the first half of the year is that the service center side has been getting their balance sheet. I mean, not balance sheet, excuse me, but their supply base and their it's been more in line. So that there's been we've seen that reduction and that's been some of the impact we've been talking about. I think it currently resides at the OEMs.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And and the OEMs, as you as you recall, had been ramping up last year and had ran into a couple of headwinds themselves. So so a good bit of that that metal right now resides at the OEMs. And that's why we keep getting more favorable outlook here as they continue those ramp rates. We know that they're consuming more and more of that metal. And so that's where we're getting healthier in the, at least in the second half of the year.

Josh Sullivan
Equity Research Analyst - Industrial Technology, Aerospace & Defense at The Benchmark Company LLC

Got it. And then just if we think about past cycles, destock to restock with aerospace, is that signaling that you're getting, is that similar to previous cycles? Or is there anything different necessarily about this cycle that we might wanna think about as as we ramp up?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

No. I you know, I think it's it's all around build rates, Josh. And and as these things really start to ramp, we know they have the backlog. We know they've been ramping up their entire supplies chains and their own productivity to to meet higher levels. So it's it's really in our mind as we're looking forward, we see it ramping 2026 through the balance of the decade.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

You know, it was the big reason for us to launch the next phase investment at Trentwood. And, you know, we think that's gonna come out at a very good time. Now if we get some tailwinds from semiconductor or continued GE, that's just gonna put, you know, that that that capacity in an even a better position for us. So I think we're in for we've had a reset here in the last twelve to eighteen months. And I think the next three to four years are gonna be very strong and taxing on the supply chain in the aerospace.

Josh Sullivan
Equity Research Analyst - Industrial Technology, Aerospace & Defense at The Benchmark Company LLC

And then just one last question on defense. The F-thirty five, as far as the domestic rates, there's some questions around that. Obviously, strong on the international side and then the overall question about drones and new programs coming You know, how how exposed are you to one program versus the other versus kind of the general trend in rising defense spending?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Well, you know, I I first of all, we think the f 35 is it takes a breather. This isn't the first time to take a little breather. But with all the NATO allo allies and foreign build rates that have come online, they they tend to just backfill. Just like Boeing did when China said that they weren't going to take shipments for a while, they very quickly pivoted and filled the back the backlog with with other demand. We see that going on with the f 35.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And now, you you know, what whatever happens in the future always remains to be seen. We thought the F 22 was gonna be much bigger than it turned out to be. What will be the F 47? You know, who knows? But one of the things that we've continually discussed from a Kaiser perspective, our positioning in that market has kept us in all of the available platforms, whether they were rotary or fixed wing.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

And so we're still supplying metal toward F-sixteen builds that were supposed to be over ten years ago. And we're still seeing a nice healthy build rate. We're seeing that on the F-fifteen. And we still see long runway here for the F-thirty five. We're and there's actually even been some discussion about bringing not just cargo, but military cargo back at some rate.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

So we're pretty well positioned throughout that chain. And what I do like about our positioning there, our capacity is also shared with strong general engineering for like semiconductor or space, which is is continues to build. So we have many offsets that can replace any short term transitional type things that happen. And that's why when you look at our our really our performance on aerospace, you see a very consistent quarter to quarter type run, and we can bring those those continued growth investments we're making to bear pretty quickly.

Josh Sullivan
Equity Research Analyst - Industrial Technology, Aerospace & Defense at The Benchmark Company LLC

Got it. Yeah. That that c 17 would have some nice aluminum content on the cargo side. Thank you, Paul. I'll I'll there. Thanks.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thank you, Josh.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Abe Landa with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

Good morning. You for taking my questions. Maybe starting off, you called out some costs, I believe, related to start up charges, I think you said 17,000,000 I guess what's embedded in there? Are those going to repeat in the second half of next year? And if so, what should we expect?

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

And is that number added back to EBITDA or no?

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Oh, it was added in the in the quarter, but but we called that out because we we think those are associated with one, the startup at at Warwick related to the Rollcoat four line. So we expect those to continue to dissipate as we bring that line up. And then it was a timeliness issue. We had a number of furnace rebuilds that weren't necessarily planned, but we had an opportune time to deliver those and we did. So we went ahead and did those repairs, while we continue to have some major maintenance throughout every quarter through the year.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

We felt the need to call that out because we did have a spike in those costs for the quarter. But again, we wouldn't expect those particular costs to reoccur for the balance of the year.

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

So it shouldn't reoccur, but it was added back to the adjusted EBITDA number or it was not? Just to clarify.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Neal will take that.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

It wasn't added back to the adjusted EBITDA at all. We just highlighted that was cost that impacted the quarter as compared to the prior year quarter.

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

Okay. That's clear. And then I know you kind of were talking about this earlier just on free cash flow guidance lower while EBITDA is higher. I think you kind of mentioned that working capital. Can you just describe maybe in more detail like what's driving that?

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

What are the elements there? I mean is it tariff related or some other items in there? Is it metal lag effect? Kind of more color on that would be helpful.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Yes. So we plan this year and then we anticipated in our outlook when we gave the outlook of $100,000,000 free cash flow, a significant reduction in some of our actions we were taking in inventory management. We did get our pounds of inventory down significantly. However, offsetting that in the first of the year has been the rapid increase in metal prices, and that's basically kept our dollar amount of inventory consistent even though pounds are down. So that basically picked up additional usage of working capital due to the tariff increases in metal prices.

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

Do you have a rule of thumb of, like, for every $100 of Midwest transaction price equals x dollars of working capital? Anything like that?

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

No. We we could talk, but we don't have a rule of thumb because there's multiple items that go into that, receivables and payables and working capital. So it's not like one rule of thumb we can drop out there.

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

Okay. And then I know there's a lot of investments going on. I know you have that going on. You have kind of your your metal sourcing strategy as well. I guess if we kind of a lot of these things are going to be complete this year, I guess, how do we exit the year?

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

How do we think about building the bridge to next year when all these investments are as come through?

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Right. I think we'll give a better outlook as we get into the third quarter. We'll give you a better outlook on how we're looking out to exit the year. But I think we've given enough guidance on that over the last outlook over that over the last quarter with the 300 to 400 basis point improvement on the margin that we expect as we exit with the row coat line. And as operational efficiencies kick in, there's probably another 150, 200 basis points with that.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

So all of that's, you know, we've laid that out, and I we haven't come off that guidance yet or that outlook.

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

And is tariffs impacting your metal sourcing strategy? I know you had some earlier kind of guidance or or color on the potential impact on margins there.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

No. Tariffs actually is still neutral to positive for us. Again, we passed through that Midwest transaction price, so we're not being really impacted by the run up as we move that through with our metal neutrality pass through side. So that's not been a direct impact. And, any other sourcing costs on that, we've been pretty well able to offset with other actions we're taking.

Abraham Landa
Abraham Landa
Director at Bank of America

Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.

Neal West
Neal West
Executive VP & CFO at Kaiser Aluminum

Okay.

Operator

Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. Mr. Harvey, I'd like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

Keith Harvey
Keith Harvey
CEO, President & Director at Kaiser Aluminum

Thank you, operator. Look, we're excited for the future at Kaiser, and we're positioning the company for continued improving performance as we bring our new investments to bear. Thank you for your interest in the company, and I'll look forward to updating you on our progress when we report our third quarter results Have a good day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.

Executives
Analysts
    • Kimberly Orlando
      Senior Managing Director at ADDO Investor Relations
    • Bill Peterson
      Equity Research at JP Morgan
    • Josh Sullivan
      Equity Research Analyst - Industrial Technology, Aerospace & Defense at The Benchmark Company LLC
    • Abraham Landa
      Director at Bank of America
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