Cooper-Standard Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 1, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Cooper Standard delivered record operational performance in Q2, with 100% of customer quality and service scorecards green, 97% green for new program launches, and a safety incident rate of 0.26—well below the world-class benchmark.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company achieved $29 million of cost savings in the quarter—$25 million from lean initiatives and $4 million from restructuring and headcount optimization.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Q2 sales dipped 0.3% to $700.6 million and a GAAP net loss of $1.4 million was reported, while adjusted EBITDA rose 23% year-over-year to $62.8 million and margins expanded by 170 basis points.
  • Positive Sentiment: With $122 million in cash and $273 million in total liquidity, the firm expects to generate positive free cash flow for the full year and reduce net leverage below 4× by year-end.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company raised full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance, outlined 2030 targets of 6% sealing and 8% fluid handling revenue CAGRs, margin expansion to 20%/16% and ROIC near 20%/30%, and received a positive outlook upgrade from Moody’s.
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Earnings Conference Call
Cooper-Standard Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Cooper Standard Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in listen only mode. Following company prepared comments, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and the webcast will be available on the Cooper Standard website for replay later today. I would now like to turn the call over to Roger Hendriksen, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Roger Hendriksen
Roger Hendriksen
Director of Investor Relations at Cooper-Standard

Thanks, Sylvie, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for spending some time with us this morning. The members of our leadership team who will be speaking with you on the call this morning are Jeff Edwards, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and John Banas, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I need to remind you that this presentation contains forward looking statements. While they are made based on current factual information and certain assumptions and plans that management currently believes to be reasonable, these statements do involve risks and uncertainties.

Roger Hendriksen
Roger Hendriksen
Director of Investor Relations at Cooper-Standard

For more information on forward looking statements, we ask that you refer to slide three of this presentation and the company's statements included in periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The presentation also contains non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of the non GAAP financial measures to their more directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the appendix to the presentation. So, with those formalities out of the way, I'll now turn the call over to Jeff Edwards.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Thanks, Roger, and good morning, everyone. And as always, we appreciate the opportunity to review our second quarter results and provide an update on our business and the outlook going forward. To begin on slide five, I'd like to highlight some second quarter data points that we believe are reflective of our continuing outstanding operational performance and our ongoing commitment to our core company values. In terms of operations and customer service, I'm extremely proud to report that we ended the second quarter with a record 100% of our total three seventeen customer scorecards for quality and service being green. This is such an amazing accomplishment, frankly, and it speaks volumes to the dedication and commitment of our manufacturing teams around the world.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

It's also an indication of how effective the new digital tools we've deployed in our plants can be at identifying potential challenges, and more importantly, enable corrective actions before they become bigger issues. So, a huge shout out to our manufacturing leadership team, our plant managers, and our plant employees for this remarkable result. Thank you all very much. For new program launches, we continue our outstanding service level with 97% customer scorecards being green, despite increased launch activity, as we've discussed. Frankly, these are amazing operational statistics that reflect our total company commitment to providing the best possible value for our customers, as well as our internal commitment to excellence in all that we do.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Also, in our plant operations, safety performance continues to be excellent. During the second quarter, we had a total incident rate of 0.26 reportable incidents per two hundred thousand hours worked. That's well below the world class benchmark of point four seven. Even more important, 44 of our plants have maintained a perfect safety record with a total incident rate of zero for the first half of the year. Just to frame that, that's 75% of all of our production facilities achieving a perfect safety score, and demonstrating that our ultimate goal of zero safety incidents is certainly achievable.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

We are proud of the entire global team for their focus and achievement in the most important operating measure for our company. In terms of cost optimization, we had another solid quarter with our manufacturing and purchasing teams delivering $25,000,000 of savings through lean initiatives and other cost saving programs. In addition, the restructuring and headcount optimization initiative that we implemented beginning in the second quarter of last year has been driving cost savings as we planned. In the second quarter, that initiative actually yielded another $4,000,000 in year over year savings. Finally, we're continuing to leverage world class service, technical capabilities, and our award winning innovations to win new business.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

During the 2025, we were awarded $77,000,000 in net new business awards. We're proud to be the supplier that our customers increasingly turn to for quality components, consistency of delivery, and collaboration on the design and development of new technologies and critical systems for some of their most important vehicle platforms. Turning to slide six, with our product quality and customer service levels at all time highs, our relationships with our customers, frankly, have never been better. As a result, we continue to amass an impressive number of important awards from our customers, the latest being the Ford Supplier of the Year. In addition, we are proud to be selected to collaborate with the Renault Group on their Enblame project, that's an eco conscious family demo car that aims to reduce CO2 emissions over its life cycle.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

The groundbreaking project integrates two of Cooper Standard's low carbon, high performance vehicle innovations, the FlexCore thermoplastic body seal and our flush seal sealing system. But more important than hardware in the trophy case is the way these quality relationships enable us to continue to negotiate and navigate today's business environment. This has been clearly evident in our recent discussions on tariff impacts, which are now largely complete, with the most important commercial negotiations now behind us for the year, importantly, our focus in the second half can be 100% on sustaining our operational excellence and executing our plans to achieve our long term goals and objectives. I look forward to speaking more about this in the next few minutes, but for now, I'll turn the call over to John to review the financial details of the quarter.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. In the next few slides, I'll provide some details on our financial results for the quarter and discuss our cash flows, liquidity and aspects of our capital structure. On Slide eight, we show a summary of our results for the second quarter and 2025 with comparisons to the same periods last year. Second quarter twenty twenty five sales were $7.00 $6,000,000 a decrease of 0.3% compared to the 2024. The slight decrease was driven primarily by unfavorable volume and mix, including net customer price adjustments, partially offset by favorable foreign exchange.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $62,800,000 an increase of more than 23% when compared to the $50,900,000 we reported in the second quarter of last year. Importantly, we're able to drive further margin expansion of 170 basis points versus the same period a year ago despite lower sales and production volumes. On a U. S. GAAP basis, we reported a small net loss of $1,400,000 in the second quarter compared to a net loss of $76,200,000 in the 2024.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Adjusting for restructuring and other items from both periods as well as the related tax impacts, adjusted net income for the 2025 was positive $1,000,000 or $06 per diluted share compared to adjusted net loss of $11,300,000 or $0.64 per diluted share in the '20 capital expenditures in the 2025 totaled $7,800,000 or 1.1% of sales, which was lower than the second quarter of last year, owing largely to the timing of new launch projects. We continue to exercise discipline around capital investments in order to maximize our returns on invested capital. For the first six months of twenty twenty five, our sales dipped on unfavorable foreign exchange and slightly lower volume mix and net price adjustments. But despite lower revenue, our gross profit margin increased by 200 basis points and our adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 300 basis points compared to the same six month period a year ago. We were also very pleased to achieve positive GAAP net income in the first half of the year, which was an amazing improvement of more than $6 per share versus last year.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Moving to Slide nine. The charts on Slide nine provide additional insights and quantification of the key factors impacting our results for the second quarter. For sales, unfavorable volume and mix, net of customer price adjustments, reduced sales by approximately $7,000,000 compared to the 2024. This impact was partially offset by favorable foreign exchange of approximately $4,000,000 For adjusted EBITDA, lean initiatives in purchasing and manufacturing contributed $25,000,000 in savings and cost reductions year over year. Savings from the implementation of restructuring initiatives added $4,000,000 compared to the 2024.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

And favorable foreign exchange was a tailwind of approximately $3,000,000 in the quarter. Partially offsetting these improvements were $16,000,000 of unfavorable volume and mix, including customer price adjustments, and $6,000,000 in increased costs from higher wages and general inflation. Moving to slide 10. On Slide 10, we present the same type of year over year bridge analysis for the first half of the year. Sales declined by approximately $12,000,000 or just less than 1%, driven primarily by unfavorable foreign exchange.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Adjusted EBITDA in the first half increased by more than $41,000,000 or more than 51% compared to the 2024. The improvement was driven primarily by $45,000,000 of manufacturing and purchasing efficiencies, dollars 12,000,000 of restructuring savings and $5,000,000 of favorable foreign exchange. These positive drivers were partially offset by $16,000,000 of unfavorable volume and mix and approximately $13,000,000 of higher wages and general inflation. We are pleased with our improving results in the first half of the year as our focus on controlling costs, delivering exceptional performance and the launch of more profitable programs are having the positive impacts we had planned and expected, despite production volumes being lower than planned expectations. Moving to Slide 11.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Looking at cash flow and liquidity, net cash used in operating activities was approximately $16,000,000 in the 2025 compared to $12,000,000 in the 2024. Capital spending, as mentioned earlier, was approximately $8,000,000 in the second quarter, resulting in net free cash outflow of approximately $23,000,000 for the quarter. This is consistent with the second quarter of last year, despite cash interest paid being more than $14,000,000 higher this year. We ended the second quarter with a cash balance of approximately $122,000,000 Combined with $151,000,000 of availability on our ABL facility, which remained undrawn, we had solid total liquidity of approximately $273,000,000 as of 06/30/2025, which we believe is sufficient to support the continuing execution of our business plans and profitable growth objectives. And importantly, following the solid results of the first half and considering our current outlook for production volumes in the remainder of the year, we believe we are on track to achieve positive free cash flow for the full year.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Further, as we continue to focus on delevering through earnings growth, achieving the midpoint of our guidance range for full year adjusted EBITDA, combined with our expectations for positive free cash flow, would result in a net leverage ratio below four times at the end of this year. We are pleased that our improving results and solid future prospects are being recognized by our stakeholders, including credit rating agencies such as Moody's, who recently upgraded their outlook on Cooper Standard from stable to positive. With respect to our capital structure, we are actively evaluating various options to strengthen our balance sheet and further improve our cash flows, and are carefully monitoring conditions in the credit markets. We are optimistic that as we continue to deliver improving results, we will be able to refinance our first and third lien notes with more favorable terms and rates. With that, let me turn it back over to Jeff.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

All right, thanks John, I appreciate the exciting news there, great job. So, in the last portion of our call here, I'd like to again comment on our high level strategic imperatives that I mentioned earlier, but also provide some additional details on the strategic plans for each of our operating segments, and where we believe these strategies can take us over the next few years. Then, I'll wrap up with some comments on our near term outlook and our revised guidance for 2025. So, you'd please turn to slide 13. Our strategies and operating plans are really built around the four strategic imperatives that you see outlined here on slide 13, and as a global team, we established this basic framework a couple years ago, I guess, and by aligning the companies around these common objectives, we've been able to drive significant improvements in virtually every aspect of our business.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

And with the improved operating performance and stability of the business, we have now been able to turn more attention, frankly, to our longer term planning and the strategies and objectives that align with that. So, in that context, we recently asked our two product presidents to work with really their respective teams everywhere in the world to develop these long term strategies for each of their businesses that would not only achieve these stated strategic imperatives, but build on them to take Cooper Standard to the next level of value creation that we believe in over the next several years, and as we like to say, just around the corner, so to speak. Last month, we presented those exact plans to the board of directors, and they certainly expressed enthusiastic support, which is exciting. And so, while we don't have time to go into those details here this morning, obviously, I still think it makes sense to share a brief summary on each plan with you. And that's really just to highlight that presentation to the board, that's just part of our normal business review process, and it happens to be the time of year where we do it, and it lines up with the call, so I thought it would make sense.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

So, if we just go to slide 14 and take a look at the sealing system strategy there, as the global market leader, system our strategy is focused on sustaining the operational excellence that has reestablished the financial strength of the business and leveraging global expertise, as we all know, in our engineering, design, and manufacturing, and they've done a great job to drive profitable growth. That's both in our existing and in our new markets. Great improvement there by that team. In our manufacturing facilities, the sealing team expects to drive greater efficiencies in both process and asset allocation by utilizing digital tools, and those are powered and connected through our network and supported by artificial intelligence. Our proprietary suite of digital tools we call CS Factory is currently being rolled out in key global locations, and that will eventually be expanded and deployed to every one of our manufacturing facilities in the world.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

They're also using digital tools to make the design and validation process for new products faster and more efficient, supporting our customers in developing markets that tend to have shorter product development cycles. Finally, the Sealing team will continue to focus on the voice of the customer, and is quickly bringing additional innovative products and technologies to market that we expect will add value for our customers and enable Cooper Standard to expand content per vehicle, and more importantly, market share. Turning to slide 15, with over $300,000,000 in new business awards since 2023, the Sealing business is a good line of sight on new program launches with improved variable contribution margins over execution of these plans, including further cost optimization actions, will drive revenue growth of about 6% on average over the next five years for our Sealing business, with significant expansion of EBITDA margins and return on capital increasing to approximately 20% by 02/1930. Turning to slide 16 and the fluid handling systems strategic plan and some details. So, on slide 16, the fluid handling system strategy certainly looks to unlock the full potential of the organization, expanding geographically in association with our key and our fastest growing customers, leveraging the growth trends in hybrid vehicles to expand content per vehicle, and launching new innovative products and technologies, including thermal management solutions and the award winning EcoFlow family of products.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

In addition, the fluid handling team expects to continue their relentless focus on cost optimization and world class manufacturing execution to drive further margin enhancement. And if you look at slide 17, as with the sealing business, the fluid handling business has a strong book of new program awards that is expected to drive both growth and improved profitability over the planning period as programs launch. In fact, our top line growth is expected to average approximately 8% annually over the next five years with our fluid business. In addition, with continued world class manufacturing execution and cost optimization, EBITDA margins for the fluid handling business are expected to increase to around 16%, and return on invested capital is expected to approach 30% over that five year planning horizon. As profits and cash flow improve, self funded inorganic growth could provide additional opportunities as well.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

While we're confident in our abilities to execute our strategic plans and achieve these strategic targets. Certainly, we're not issuing guidance here, it's too early, consider these 2030 targets, if you will. However, we all know that the challenges the industry has faced with global production volume, that's still kind of in our face. But that being said, as a company, we're better positioned today than we are, than we have been at any other time in our company's history, to plan effectively, to execute consistently, and flawlessly launch new business, and deliver what we say we'll do. The other thing I would note here is that with that planning horizon, we didn't assume really any uptick in the volumes as we've been seeing them over the last few years, especially here in the North American market.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

I think the maximum volume we used was around 15,300,000 units in that outlook. So, any additional volume increase beyond that would certainly be good news to the plan that I just described. And we all know that the industry volumes have to bounce back here someday, right? So, to conclude our prepared remarks this morning, let me shift focus to the near term and our outlook for the rest of 2025. There is still a lot of uncertainty around The US trade policy and the implementation of tariffs that may impact the auto industry globally.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Industry production forecasts for the second half of the year have improved slightly, but still remain below where they were coming into the year before trade and tariff policies became a concern. As for Cooper Standard, we've successfully reached agreements with our customers that will allow us to pass through or recover the majority of all direct tariff impacts on our business. With the conclusion of commercial negotiations, we can focus on execution, as I mentioned earlier, and continued operational excellence while preparing to be flexible for any changes up or down in total production volume. So, turning to slide 19, following the first half in which our results exceeded our plan, and given our continued strong operational execution, we feel confident in raising our full year guidance for adjusted EBITDA, and you can see that on the table. The waterfall chart on the right describes the drivers for our outlook for the full year 2025 versus 2024 actuals.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Improvements in manufacturing and purchasing are the biggest drivers, but production volume, including product mix, remains most likely variable over the next five months. As always, we wanna thank our customers and all of our stakeholders for your continued confidence and support as we continue to execute our plans to drive further operating improvements, accelerated profitable growth, and sustainable long term value. This concludes our prepared remarks, so let's move into Q and A.

Operator

Thank you. And our first question comes from Kurt Lutke at Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Hello, Jeff, John, Roger. Thank you for the call.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Good morning.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Good morning, Kirk.

Roger Hendriksen
Roger Hendriksen
Director of Investor Relations at Cooper-Standard

Good morning, Kirk.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

And and thank you for the the 2,030 targets. These are really interesting. On the on the ceiling side, looks like there's 400,000,000 of incremental revenue, of which $300,000,000 is net new business. Is that am I reading that correctly?

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Yeah. I think your math is right.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Okay. And then the rest looks like the other $100,000,000 is some modest increase in production, and I don't know, maybe pricing or something mix or something like that?

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Yeah, Kurt, this is Jeff.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

As I mentioned, the volume assumption that we used when we built that strategy that we reviewed with the board here recently, we used S and P's numbers from last year that they had forecast out through 'twenty six and 'twenty seven. So, in our 'twenty five, 'twenty six, and 'twenty seven business plan, those were the, I would say, I don't want to call it the mortician's forecast, but I guess I just did. So, as relates to any increase above that 15,300,000 units here in North America anyway, it's pretty much flat. So, didn't, you know, bump up any numbers here with higher volumes like we've seen normally in our industry. We kept it as the forecast from S and P suggested out through the '28 period.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

I think it represented a couple percent growth each year, so not much at all.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Okay, great. Thank you. And the math on the fluid side, 600,000,000 of incremental revenue, are you sharing how much net new business is in that number?

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

We have broken out net new business for both of these product groups since we started managing the business this way and reporting it externally. So, each quarter, I think you have not only what we've been booking, but also the powertrain that aligns with it. We've also given you some content per vehicle data points that for each one of those, whether it's an ICE, hybrid, or electric vehicle, we've talked about the increase in content. We also, last quarter, talked about the vertical integration that's starting to come our way with overall system integration opportunities that our fluid teams are driving. So, what we know of that is included in that outlook, but I would tell you that as it relates to the vertical integration piece and how that will drive content per vehicle, that's not in there.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

And if there's any consolidation opportunities within that business over time, as I mentioned from an inorganic point of view, none of that's reflected in those numbers. So, this is sort of what's been going on within the business, how we've been booking business, the content that we know of today is reflected in there. So, it isn't any real crazy kind of projections that we put into that plan. As the industry adjusts to less EV and more hybrid, those numbers actually will get quite a bit better.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. So, if I were is fair to say that if there's 100,000,000 of other in Sealing, there's, say, 100,000,000 of other in Fluid, so you've got $500,000,000 in net new business in Fluid over the next five years?

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

That's fine. You can say that.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Yeah. Okay. Well, that's So, 80% of the incremental billion is booked?

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

That's correct.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Wow. Okay. And the margin expansion, I guess, in part is based on the optimization of the footprint. Can you maybe elaborate on that and how in a tariff environment, how you decide what's optimal?

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Yeah. So, as we've talked, we have a very detailed quote process for all of our new business. We have hurdle rates, we have margin expectations, we're tracking the variable contribution margin on all those businesses from the time of award until we launch It's a KPI that gets a lot of attention, and has the last several years. And so, we're very confident that the pricing that's in this strategy plan that you're referring to are real, we're doing it today, there isn't any hockey stick or anything like that that's built into these numbers. It's based on the fundamentals of what's being reported today, and then as those improvements from a cost point of view come into our business, obviously that improves margins on the business that we've booked.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

But also pricing is a big part of it. We're managing that very closely. Obviously, the changes that occur in our product tend to be late in the cycle, and so those increases also are very important because typically costs are going up, so prices have to go up. We're just much more disciplined around all of it. So, I would tell you that our forecasting, Curt, has improved immensely, and not just within the business year, like we're talking about here in 2025, but in 'twenty six, 'twenty seven, 'twenty eight, and then out there in 'twenty nine and 'thirty, Because our business is sourced to us so far in advance, we have a pretty good idea of what it is and what the prices are, you know, three years out.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

And so, it's got some pretty good accuracy, if you will, even when we get out into that fourth and fifth year.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. And then, I guess, if I just kind of backing into the math here, you're forecasting at the midpoint, adjusted EBITDA two thirty five for fiscal twenty twenty five and something north of 500 for fiscal twenty twenty five.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Yeah. That's your math.

Kirk Ludtke
Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC

Okay. Wow. Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

You're welcome.

Operator

And our next question will be from Michael Ward at Citi Research. Please go ahead.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Hey, Mike.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

Jeff. Just maybe to follow-up on that. Do you have any lines currently today, whether in fluid or ceiling that are at the types of margins you're looking at as a guidepost for 02/1930?

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Yes.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

You do? Okay. So, it's not like it's unattainable. Have a way to get there, a path to get there for Yeah,

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

as I mentioned, Mike, the programs that we're booking right now that we don't launch for three years, right?

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

Right.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

Those are already achieving the type of hurdle rates that we have in plan. The only thing that wouldn't be in there is this hybrid vertical integration for fluid that's really gonna drive some significant content per vehicle. We know that's coming.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

We have some experience in that already, but we purposely book any of that in these numbers, so that would all be upside as it happens, and I just felt that, you know, to keep it a little bit conservative at this stage until we know more about what those numbers will look like, even though I know they're gonna be better, It's not even reflected, so there's upside in fluid just based on how the market shift will go from ice to hybrid to EV for our fluid business, and as I mentioned to you many times in the past, because of the way we're vertically integrating there and getting involved with more systems integration, that's going to drive higher numbers for us too, and basically that five year forecast for fluid has very little of that in there.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

It's interesting. If you look back over the last couple of years, there are a couple of big things you did. Your commercial agreements allowed you, gave you the flexibility to get some of this stuff done in the tariff environment. Correct? And then you have restructuring actions.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

It looks like if I'm reading your walk from the first half and second half, you have a similar volume impact in the second half, and it's likely that volume is gonna be flat or higher. So, you know, if if I'm going through this correctly, you have an outside shot of getting pretty damn close to the 10% margins by four q, your exit rate hope. Is that right?

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

That's correct, Mike. I still am holding to that. You know, we've even used, as you just mentioned, fourth quarter, it's not a secret, the fourth quarter volume forecast that everybody's using from S and P are still depressing and depressed. And I don't expect that to actually occur based on what we're seeing already in releases, but, you know, tether off to that each So, it is what it is. But I would expect that that we'll have some upside there to your to your point.

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

I'd be shocked if we don't, but, you know, that that's their numbers right now.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

No. No. And that's an important point, Jeff, because there is a there is a separation. You know, what you hear from the dealers and what you hear from yourselves and the suppliers and the schedules you see from the manufacturers, they're materially higher than what IHS is currently using from what I can tell, looking at the IHS Yeah,

Jeffrey Edwards
Jeffrey Edwards
Chairman & CEO at Cooper-Standard

that's correct. And we've releases right now through, you know, into October already. We have a pretty good idea what's I gonna mean, quarter, we know what it is, and fourth is starting to come up from what was out there by these agencies. And so, I Yeah. But we didn't forecast it because that's not how we normally do it.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

No, no, I think that's the right thing to do. And I think IHS will move them higher over the coming over the next two weeks, probably. Hey, Don, when I look at the cash flow balance sheet, how much cash restructuring was there whether in 2Q or first half?

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Cash restructuring, Mike, give me a second. It wasn't considerable. I think it was less than $10,000,000 but we'll get you the exact number on cash restructuring

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

first half.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

It'll be in the queue, right? But it's about 10,000,000?

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Yes.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

So if I take that out, then we're looking at a working capital use of about 75,000,000 in the first half. That should unwind in the second half completely or will some of that drag into '26?

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

No, we think it unwinds completely. It's important to keep perspective that we also paid $55,000,000 in cash interest in June and we'll do that again in December. But despite that $110 $115,000,000 all in of cash interest, we do expect positive free cash flow for the year. So much of the working capital you're pointing to will unwind and we think that that'll be a tailwind in the second half. The normal seasonality is such that we use cash in the first half.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

We start generating positive cash in Q3 and Q4. And this year's cadence looks no different than that.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

And if you are successful refinancing the first and third liens, what type of rate reduction can we look for? Particularly if we got a rate reduction in September.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Yeah, we're reading the tea leaves there. Our trajectory the improvements we're making, I kind of alluded to it in my prepared remarks, We're getting recognized for that, Mike. So we're kind of on the cusp of ratings inflection point. A triple C rating, it's much more costly than a single B. And we're kind of operating and having that trajectory with that positive outlook towards a single B territory.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

So we'd like to think there's an improvement, but how much that will be remains to be seen based on the market conditions that you referred to. And that's why we're kind of working ahead with our banking partners to kind of put a roadmap together to see when it makes sense to go to market and how good the step up can be.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

I mean, are we talking 100, two three hundred basis points, that type of improvement?

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Well, that's the range, I guess you could say, a CCC to a B, but not all B credits are the same and pay the same rate. The proverbial answer is it depends.

Michael Ward
Michael Ward
Financial Analyst at Citi

Yeah, that's the beauty of the debt market. Thank you very much. Nicely done.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Okay, Mike. Thanks, Mike.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will be from Ben Briggs at Stonix Financial. Please go ahead. Please go ahead, Ben. Unmute your line.

Ben Briggs
Ben Briggs
Director - Leveraged Finance Strategist at StoneX Group

Sorry, I was muted there. So, yes, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking the call. Congratulations on the quarter and on the guidance. A lot of mine got answered, but quick one here.

Ben Briggs
Ben Briggs
Director - Leveraged Finance Strategist at StoneX Group

Can you provide some more detail on that use of cash for working capital this quarter and how you see that unwinding in the second half?

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

Yes, Ben. The big components that had the outflow, if you will, from December 2024 to June 2025 were really the build back up of accounts receivable. We had a really strong year end performance last year where we were very diligent in collecting outstanding AR, drove that balance down to $310,000,000 or so, when historically the year end balance is really closer to $3.50, $12.23 was $3.80, we're back up to $3.71 right now as of June. So that's more the normal level. And when you had the significant over performance on collections at year end last year, as well as our typical factoring program that adds liquidity to us, bringing that down to $310,000,000 but now back up to $371,000,000 that $60,000,000 outflow or so is the biggest component.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

I think inventory and accounts payable net each other out, but that's the biggest driver. So as we continue to look to unwind working capital, we still have got improvements to make on all metrics or all line items between now and the end of the year. And you'll see a normalization of that going forward.

Ben Briggs
Ben Briggs
Director - Leveraged Finance Strategist at StoneX Group

All right, that's very helpful. Thanks guys and congratulations again.

Jonathan Banas
Jonathan Banas
EVP & CFO at Cooper-Standard

All right, Ben, thanks.

Operator

It appears that there are no more questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Roger Hendriksen.

Roger Hendriksen
Roger Hendriksen
Director of Investor Relations at Cooper-Standard

Okay, thanks everybody. We appreciate your engagement, your questions. And if there are other questions that come up later in the day that you would like to have some clarity on, please feel free to give me a call. Until then, we appreciate your joining today, and you can disconnect. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. And at this time, we do please ask that you disconnect your lines. Enjoy your weekend.

Executives
    • Roger Hendriksen
      Roger Hendriksen
      Director of Investor Relations
    • Jeffrey Edwards
      Jeffrey Edwards
      Chairman & CEO
    • Jonathan Banas
      Jonathan Banas
      EVP & CFO
Analysts
    • Kirk Ludtke
      Managing Director at Imperial Capital LLC
    • Michael Ward
      Financial Analyst at Citi
    • Ben Briggs
      Director - Leveraged Finance Strategist at StoneX Group
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