TAT Technologies Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 12, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q2 revenue grew 18% year-over-year to $43.1 million, gross margin expanded by 320 bps to 25.1%, and adjusted EBITDA increased 41.9% to $6.1 million (14% margin).
  • Positive Sentiment: Long-term agreement value and backlog rose by $85 million to $524 million, driven by new contracts on recently certified platforms and customer expansions.
  • Positive Sentiment: Trading and leasing revenue tripled year-over-year, helping offset near-term MRO intake softness and showcasing operational flexibility.
  • Positive Sentiment: Completed a $45 million public equity offering, welcomed new U.S. institutional investors, and enhanced financial flexibility to pursue accretive acquisitions.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Management expects ongoing quarter-to-quarter MRO volatility due to discretionary airline maintenance but remains confident thanks to diversified revenue streams and real-time capacity shifts.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
TAT Technologies Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

My name is Matt Chesler, and I'm a partner with FNK IR, a US based investor relations firm supporting Iran Younger, TAT's internal head of investor relations. Hosting today's call is Ygal Zamir, our President and CEO and Ehud Benyere, our CFO. Before getting started, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that certain matters discussed on this call may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other provisions of the federal securities laws. These forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these forward looking statements.

Operator

The forward looking statements are made as of the date of this call and, except as required by law, TAT Technologies assumes no obligation to update or revise them. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward looking statements. For a more detailed discussion of how these and other risks and uncertainties could cause T and T Technologies' actual results to differ materially from those indicated in these forward looking statements, please see our annual report on Form 20 F for the fiscal year ended 12/31/2024, and other filings we make with the SEC. The financial measures discussed today include non GAAP measures. We believe investors focus on non GAAP financial measures in comparing results between periods and among our peer companies that publish similar non GAAP measures.

Operator

Please see yesterday evening's Form six ks, our earnings release and the Investors section of our website at tattechnologies.com for a reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures to GAAP measures. Non GAAP financial information should not be considered in isolation from, as a substitute for, or superior to GAAP financial information, but is included because management believes it provides meaningful information about the financial performance of our business and is useful to investors for informational and comparative purposes. The non GAAP financial measures that we use have limitations and may differ from those by other companies. With all that, I would now like to turn the call over to Ygal.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the second quarter earning call. I appreciate your interest and continued support as we review TAT Technologies' performance and discuss our strategic direction moving forward. Q two marked another quarter of double digit revenue growth for TAT, reflecting the impact of the strategic initiative implemented over the last few years. We continue to outpace the industry peer group averages, and and we are doing it organically through market share gains, delivering solid revenue growth, margin expansion, and driving sustainable profitability. This was the fourth consecutive quarter of sequential gross margin improvement, exceeding 25% for the first time and demonstrating our improving operational efficiencies and the management focus on expanding margin.

Speaker 1

Importantly, we also enhanced long term visibility by increasing our long term agreement value and backlog by $85,000,000 to $524,000,000. This growth reflects both new contracts win, including programs tied to more recently certified platforms, and continued expansion within our customer base. We achieved this 18% year over year revenue growth and even greater growth in the long term agreement and backlog even as we experienced some weaknesses in MRO intake. This production is due to strategic diversification of our revenue between trading, MRO, and OEM. I'd note that during the last month, MRO intake became reaccelerating and and which is reinforcing our near term confident.

Speaker 1

In parallel, with strong commercial performance, we further strengthened our financial position and simplified our capital structure. During the quarter, we facilitated a successful public offering and welcomed new group of institutional investor, a majority of which are located in The US. At the same time, we increased our financial flexibility to pursue potential accretive acquisitions that enhance our growth profile. With this fundraising complete, we are well prepared to execute the next phase of our strategy, adding new businesses line to related categories to our targeted m a m a m and a, I'm sorry, to expand our addressable market and accelerate growth. In parallel to this, under the leadership of our chairman, we focused on strengthening our board of directors with an overall goal to align our board composition with the growth with our growth strategy and new challenges, including m and a, capital markets, US market background, and industry experience.

Speaker 1

Now let's turn into our financial performance. Second quarter revenue increased by 18% to $43,000,000, up from $36,500,000 in the same period last year. For the first six months of the year, revenues was up more than 20% in comparison to the first six months of last year. While we increased revenue in a double digit pace, strong booking led to even larger increase in our long term agreement value and backlog, which expanded by 85,000,000 to $524,000,000. This progress validates our belief in growing customer demand and reinforces our business strategy strategy of expanding our addressable market by adding new capabilities.

Speaker 1

Our gross profit increased by 35%, and our gross margin expanded by 320 basis points to 25.1% compared to 21.9% in the second quarter of last year. This improvement is an outcome of an of our ongoing effort to optimize cost structure, improve operational efficiencies, and enhance our product mix. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 41.9% to $6,100,000, translating to an adjust adjusted EBITDA margin of 14%, a notable improvement from 11.9 margin percent margin, I'm sorry, in the same period last year. TAT continued to deliver operating leverage as a result of our disciplined expense management. I'd like to note that we continue to believe that there are opportunities to further improve our expanding both our gross margin and EBITDA margin as we scale.

Speaker 1

We also generated approximately $7,000,000 in positive cash flow from operation in the quarter, which is a further testament to the progress we are making and to the strength of our business model. Our strong performance comes at a time when the aviation sector is facing range of macroeconomics and operational headwinds. While we are not immune, we believe that our business is well positioned to manage through them. It is not uncommon from airline fleets to adjust discretionary maintenance activities based on evolving budget and operational needs. This creates period of softer ink intake followed by surges in demands, which adds complexity and impact short term visibility.

Speaker 1

We've seen this dynamic more clearly in the in the in the recent months. What differentiate us is our ability to shift capacity in real time. This quarter, that agility helped us offset softer MRO volumes by capitalizing on trading opportunities and to protect our profitability. While the level of market volatility does not appear to be dissipating, we believe that our model remains doable. Our growing traction with customers and OEM partners combined with our operational flexibility support our long term strategy and ability to execute a in a in a dynamic environment.

Speaker 1

Growth in APU work in the second quarter increased 12% year over year, but decreased slightly on a sequential basis, reflecting this increasing wallet volatility. The sequential APU revenue did reflect a short term shift in customer behavior, not a change in long term fundamentals. In response to the broader macro environment, carriers proactively deferred noncritical maintenance to preserve cash and to better manage operating expenses. But the reality is that with aircraft utilization remaining very high, especially among the aging fleets, the need for services is not that are not discretionary. It is sometimes delayed, but is not diminished.

Speaker 1

Offsetting the sequential APU dip was a triple tripling of our revenue from trading and leasing. This segment showcases our operation operational flexibility and synergies with modest m MRO intake in the quarter. We identified the immediate market needs for exchanges programs, enabling us to maintain productivity and profitability while servicing real time customer needs. Long term, our robust and growing backlog positioned us well to continue and outperform the industry. We expect ongoing quarter to quarter volatility, including potential short term fluctuations in MRO intake in the near term.

Speaker 1

As we continue to scale, we expect these variations of quarter to quarter to be less impact, but this is the reality of the aviation industry in general and MRO business in particular. We have constructed our business to be as resilient as possible to these factors. From our position of strength and in line of our strategic growth plan, we continue to seek opportunity to expand our capabilities. This includes exploring strategic acquisitions. There are opportunities to make accretive bolt on acquisitions that would increase the addressable market and open additional natural, adjacencies.

Speaker 1

Our goal is to enhance the value that we provide to our strategic customers, and the more services we can provide to our customers, the more valuable we will be for them. In summary, TAT technologies continue to deliver performance that outpace the industry. Our strategy is working, providing the scale to position us as a meaningful as a meaningful provider to the aviation industry and governments, and the diversification to navigate supply chain and other challenges common to the industry. Longer term, my optimism my optimism remains even though my short term outlook remains cautious. We are generating encouraging demand to our products and services, strong interest from both new and existing customers, and we have the potential to achieve long term growth rates that significant significantly outpace the broader industry as while continuing to expand margin.

Speaker 1

In closing, before I turn the call to Ehud, I want to take a moment to thank our dedicated employees for their professionalism and hard work. Our achievement would have not been possible without their effort, and they continue to set the standard for the industry. Thank you. And with that, I'll turn the I'll turn it over to our CFO, Erwin Yahir, to provide further insights into our financial performance and business outlook.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Yigal, and good morning, everyone. Good afternoon for those who joined us from Israel. I will review some financial elements as well as cash flow and balance sheet. We continue to see growth in revenue and improvement in profitability elements quarter after quarter for already nine quarters in a row. Revenue in 2025 grew by 18% to $43,100,000 compared to 36.5 in 2024.

Speaker 2

The revenue in the first six months of twenty twenty five grew by 21% to $85,200,000 compared to $70,600,000 on 2024. Year over year, the growth was driven, from all product segments, mainly MRO activity on the commercial side of the business. Revenue grew in, revenue growth in 2025 was achieved despite the slowdown in MRO work that happened during the quarter. Looking into the second half of the year, we see again strong demand for MRO work mainly on the APU and lending gear. As we indicated in the past, our growth is mainly dependent on overcoming, supply chain issues from the larger OEMs.

Speaker 2

In the 2025, gross profit was $10,800,000 and reached the 25.1 gross margin 21 25.1% gross margin. Sorry. This is an important milestone that we indicated at the beginning of the year. Crossing the 25% gross margin put us on the same game field with the best industry leaders. The gross margin in the 2025 grew by 36% compared to the 2024, which is exactly doubling the increase in revenue year over year.

Speaker 2

In the 2025, operating income increased by 62% to $4,400,000, which is 62% increase year over year, again, almost doubling the increase of the gross margin. This was achieved mainly from the growth in revenue, our operational efficiencies program, and despite the increase in SG and A expenses, which further emphasized our operational leverage. During the 2025, we suffer from the strength of the Israeli shekel compared to the US dollar by 10%. This resulted in an increase of the cost of exchange rate differences by over half a million dollar. This is a reevaluation of over $10,000,000 of loans which were taken four years ago marked in Israeli shekel.

Speaker 2

As a result, we saw a reduction of $400,000 on the net profit in 2025 compared to 2025. Despite everything that I mentioned, net profit increased during 2025 by 25% compared to 2024 and by 53% year over year in the first June of twenty twenty five. Please note that our normal average quarterly interest rate are about half a million dollar on a quarter. All the rest are fluctuation of exchange rate differences mainly on the loans. The company does not hedge the balance exposure and the cash flow.

Speaker 2

I also want to emphasize that it is a noncash expense. And as it looks right now, we are not expecting any additional expenses of this nature in q three of, 2025. EBITDA continued to grow to $6,100,000 2025. This is a 39% increase year over year and by 47% year over year in the first six months of twenty twenty five. May I draw the attention of the audience to the 14% EBITDA margin in 2025?

Speaker 2

We're on the right direction to achieve the 15% EBITDA margin that we indicated at the beginning of the year. On July 2024, the one big beautiful bill was in The US. This bill has some positive impact on our tax exposure. From learning this bill together with our US tax adviser, and we're still carefully learning it and waiting for more instruction from the IRS, It looks like we will not pay taxes in The US this year, and this bill further because this bill further increases our carry forward losses that can be utilized in the short term. My indication about the Israel tax exposure remains the same, and I still believe that we will start paying taxes by the end of this year in Israel.

Speaker 2

On the cash flow side, in 2025, cash flow from operational activity was positively strong and was $6,900,000. It was also positive by $1,900,000 during the first six months of twenty twenty five, and this is compared to a negative cash flow of $5,000,000 in the 2025. The main reason for the positive cash flow were better collections from our customers and improving payment terms from our suppliers. During June 2025, the company completed the financing round of $45,000,000. We closed short term loans of close to $10,000,000 in order to save about $200,000 a quarter on interest expenses.

Speaker 2

This will bring down the interest expenses to an average of $300,000 on a quarterly basis. As indicated on the prospectus and during the road show, the money will be used in order to strengthen our balance sheet, provide working capital to support the growth of our operations, and mainly provide funds for strategic deals that will further accelerate the growth of the company in the near future. By the June, total loans are at the level of $12,400,000 and cash at the level of $43,000,000. Debt to EBITDA ratio is very low and currently at 0.5. TAT's shareholder equity is 166,000,000 on a balance of $214,000,000, leading us to a very strong equity to balance ratio of 78%.

Speaker 2

The strong balance sheet together with the minimal debt open opportunities to leverage more debt together with our cash to be used for strategic deal in the near future. In terms of the revenue by product line, looking at the revenue per product line, all our strategic line of product grew grew double digit year over year. This is perfectly aligned to our strategy and expectation. During the second quarter, we saw some slowdown in intake of MRO, mainly on the APU due to the due to volatilities and uncertainties that existed in the commercial aviation industry, by the way, by the same way that the volatility impact, the share and the stock market during April and May, mainly driven from the uncertainty of the tariff impact. The operational capacity on the MRO was switched to repair APU and lending gear for exchanges, which resulted in a higher revenue indicated under the trading of trading line of product.

Speaker 2

Starting from mid June, the market stabled, and we are now seeing an upward trend in intake for MRO. Therefore, I strongly recommend investors when coming to analyze the revenue by product to look at the twelve month trend per product and not to focus on small fluctuation between the quarters. During the last quarter, we announced a major win on the APU side of business, which further strengthened our midterm approach to the organic growth of the APU segment. We are certain that both APU and lending gear segment will grow will show growth year over year and align with our strategy. With regards to the backlog, backlog and LTA value continue to grow constantly.

Speaker 2

It is at the level of $524,000,000 by the 2025, an increase of $85,000,000 compared to last quarter. During the 2025, we announced a major win with one of the major car cargo carriers in the world for a contract value of 40 to $55,000,000, which is now under the APU segment in our LTI value. This one and another small size and some other small size contract are a major contributor to the increase in the backlog and LTA value, which will secure the organic growth of the company in the coming years. The total backlog and LTA of the APU and lending year has shown has grown to $204,000,000 compared to $170,000,000 at the end of 2025. It is also important to emphasize that by the end of q two twenty twenty five, the APU backlog contain multimillions contract for the triple seven APU, which are new and were not part of our backlog in 2025.

Speaker 2

This further emphasizes our go to market approach for the new engines that are expected to be a major organic growth engine for the years to come. Also, when talking about growth opportunity, the overall cycle of the e one seventy, the Embraer January lending year is starting now. We're well positioned with a signed contract to sell the largest world fleet and with some other initiatives. And by this, I have concluded my, report. But, before handling over to the org organizer, I want to use this opportunity and thank all of the existing investors and new investors that took part in the last capital raised in the secondary round for the trust and confidence in TAT and its management and believing in the in all of the good that is yet to come.

Speaker 2

I want to thank my team that diligently worked on the deal for the last, five months, and great thank you for the underwriters, the legal advisers, auditors, IR frames, and everybody that supported us. And by this, I hand over to the call for final remarks and questions.

Operator

Thank you, Ehud. We're now going to open up the call, for the q and a session. To ask your question, please either raise your hand, and we'll call on you for a live question, or use the q and a widget, for a written question, and you can type that in and submit the question that way. Additionally, if you'd like to send the question in Hebrew, please do so, and we will translate. With that, we'll now, begin and pause for a moment to build the queue.

Operator

K. The first question is going to be from Josh Sullivan at The Benchmark Company. Josh? Out.

Speaker 3

Hey. Good morning. Can you hear me?

Operator

Yes.

Speaker 3

Hey. Congratulations on the results. Yeah. Can we just dig into the, you know, the MRO acceleration acceleration comments? Mentioned, I know the quarter started off as a little uncertainty just given the macros, but can you just talk a little bit about where the reacceleration is happening in the MRO market?

Speaker 3

Is it broad based or any specific markets showing outsized recovery at this point?

Speaker 1

Josh, it's a guy. If you if you remember, last quarter, we I indicated that that the we should expect some volatility at the at the end of last year. When I'm I'm I'm in the company for nine years, and and what we are seeing this time is not different than what we saw several times in the past. We have to remember that in most cases, what the the services that we provide on them are discretionary, meaning that the airlines are not forced to send the the components for overall and repair by by schedule or by flight hours, but it's more up to their discretion. Also, they they they have a large spare inventory that they maintain.

Speaker 1

And in most cases, you know, the first day the first time when they see uncertainty is they they send less MRO work, and they try to save cash by leveraging the spares. It lasts for several months until they are out of spares, and then you see a and then and then you see a recovery, and then you see an acceleration because it the as as I mentioned in my statements, the the aircraft people flying, there is no any any nobody is reporting on any reduction in flight. So the fleet is flying. A big portion of the fleet is is really old as the airlines are waiting for new for new aircraft that are way behind schedule, and eventually, it comes. So we were telling ourselves that it will come in fourth quarter.

Speaker 1

Last year, if you recall, we spoke about it as we expected to see the seasonality of fourth quarter. It didn't happen. In first quarter, we we spoke about it, and we thought that it will come. It didn't happen. It did come in second quarter.

Speaker 1

I I don't see anything any drama here. So And there was a dip a few months, and all after a few months, we see the increase in intake. It's not, specific, if I if I may say.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 3

Got it. And and then on the the nice cash flow in the quarter, you know, what was the largest driver there? And and with this type of cash generation, you know, how are looking at working working capital growth going forward?

Speaker 1

I I think, again, you know, we we had three phases up until now in the company. First phase started in 2022. We wanted to grow. We we spent the years of COVID getting ready for the growth, and and the real focus was on revenue growth. Then about a year later, a year and a half later, we added real focus on profitability.

Speaker 1

So not only to grow the revenue, I I spoke about it many times in the last year and a half. Our biggest initiative and focus is ongoing revenue. I want to personally, I would like to bid value, not not just revenue. So increasing the margin is an ongoing concern with major initiatives across all TAT companies, and we are seeing the result quarter quarter after quarter. In parallel, if you remember, we spoke about the need to drastically increase inventory to overcome the volatility in the market and the challenges in supply chain, which still exist.

Speaker 1

We wanted to make sure that we can serve the customer and that we that we can provide good service. So it had impact on cash, and we feel that we are in a good position now to continue into supporting the market. We feel that we have the right inventories and despite the challenges in the in the industry, with few exceptions, I would say. But as a general saying, we are in the in the right place. And therefore, we added a couple of months ago, we added the third tier in our evolution to really start focusing on our on our on our cash flow.

Speaker 1

And I'm I'm pleased with the results of the quarter. We tighter controls with with with improving collections and other aspects. We have opportunities to continue and do so in the next few quarters by better by better managing our inventories, and and we feel that that this is just the beginning.

Speaker 3

Right. And may maybe just one last one on on the APU strategy. You know, you're winning smaller deals, then moving up market as you you understand the process and, you know, your your your capabilities and then moving on to larger deals. You know, how do you feel about that transition? Is that is that strategy coming together as you as you had planned?

Speaker 3

And thank you for the time.

Speaker 1

No. So far, it's as I would mentioned a couple of minutes ago, so far, it's going well for us. So on the we are capturing more and more market share on the APUs that we've been doing historically for the July and seven five seven fleets, and we are gaining more and more market share where we have huge advantages over competition. And on the new platforms, we decided to start with smaller fleets and smaller RFPs. And as I would mention, we won several of them since the beginning of the year and working on several more.

Speaker 1

So that's really it looks promising. It's not you know, it will take its time, but it's going very nicely, and it's reflecting in the in the growth of the backlog and the value of the LTAs.

Operator

Next question will come from Mike Ciarmoli at Truist. Mike, please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Can you hear me, guys? I don't know if I was muted or not, but thanks for thanks for taking the question. Maybe just on on the APUs and and the current dynamic out there. You know, I I I guess I was thinking more that, you know, those are flight critical offerings and, obviously, airlines wouldn't really have the ability to defer. You know, maybe just what what else are you seeing there?

Speaker 4

Is is some of this weakness more domestic carriers? Is it global carriers? Do you do you have a sense as to what kind of spares spare ATUs are out there in the system, or are these airlines maybe just doing kind of the bare minimum maintenance on those units replacing, you know, whether it's kind of life limited components and parts to extend the life? May maybe just any more color on on kind of the dynamic you're seeing there.

Speaker 1

Sure. Hi, Mike. First of all, I think that we see it on on global fleets. It's not necessarily related just to to US. The second thing, you need to remember that we have we have a heavy concentration of cargo carrier.

Speaker 1

And, you know, when the tariff started and then the carrier cargo carrier started feeling you know, they they were really concerned about what will happen with the with their shipments and and the freight needs and whatever. So it it had an impact on their decisions. A A typical, I don't know. A typical airline, if I'm looking at our customers, will keep anywhere from 10 to 15, spare engines on the shelf at their shops. Typically, you asked about do they do any just light repairs.

Speaker 1

I am not familiar with such behavior. I don't I cannot say that I ever saw such a behavior. So when they actually send the engine to repair, they expect the full scope. They want the engine to be both full operation. But what they do is they can you know, I have 15 spares.

Speaker 1

It's enough to to last for a couple of good months, and I'm not going to send. I'm going to sit on it. I'm going to sit on there on on this, remove the engines for couple of months. I'm by the way, I'm not saying that specifically what happens with each and every one of them, and I personally talk with talked with top executives at several of our large customers about it. We We we saw it several times in the past.

Speaker 1

So they sit on it until they feel that their spare pool is getting to a to a too low level, if you will, and then and then they send us everything. And then you see a major spike in in intake. Okay.

Speaker 4

Okay. Perfect. That that's really, really good color. And then maybe shifting just on, you know, the the commentary in the press release. You obviously did the equity raise and and maybe looking for, you know, to grow the portfolio through m and a.

Speaker 4

Are there any, you know, specific capabilities or products you would look to target to maybe expand your your kinda capability set, or are you kinda staying in the the wheelhouse of of APUs, landing gears, and the thermal management solutions?

Speaker 1

No. We I would say, you know, we we we want to stay close to our existing capabilities and DNA, so as a general thing, but definitely looking to expand into more mechanical systems and components rather than just expanding within the current segments that we have. At the end of the day, the the key goal on the MRO side, we also when comes to acquisitions, we also have some ideas relating to OEM and geographic expansion, which we discussed during the roadshow. But when it comes to the MRO, to your question, our the way our strategy is to remove headache to our customers. We want to be meaningful to our customers and to buy them with not it's not it's not just the service and cheap price.

Speaker 1

We want to help them consolidate their vendor list. We want to be more meaningful and to add more capabilities. So we are looking, as we think about acquisitions, we are looking at any company that, that will be related to what we do in sense of our understanding of the business and our understanding of how to manage it and sell to the customer, especially when it comes to the first acquisitions where we want to be more on the conservative side and go more safe, if you will. But definitely expanding behind just APUs, lending gear, and heat exchangers.

Speaker 4

Got it. And then just the last one for me. You know, I I know the trading, you know, kind of business and activity could be a bit lumpy. But if if I just look at your core kinda MRO, you know, from the APU lending gear, that was that was down about 7% sequentially. What what what should we think about those revenues going into March and April?

Speaker 4

And I'll I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1

I would I would I would just state I would just repeat what I stated that we see a large increase in in intake as in the last couple months and a half. I will keep it to that.

Operator

Thank you, Mike. The next question is from Ben Klieve at Lake Street. Ben, please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 5

All right. Thanks for taking my questions. Can you guys hear me okay?

Speaker 1

Yes. Hi, Ben.

Speaker 5

Perfect. So congratulations on a good quarter. A couple of follow-up questions here. One, great to see the seven seventy seven APU in the backlog now. Can you elaborate at all on your outlook for the APU pipeline specifically within the July or a three twenty airframes?

Speaker 1

At this point, we are still doing we are performing the work on them on a one off base, and we haven't announced any, we we have a very small, RFPs that we won and not meaningful enough to, to publish a separate deal, but, we haven't published any meaningful win yet. Still working on it.

Speaker 5

Got it. Very good. And then, a follow-up question on your m and a commentary. Can you talk a bit about how comfortable you are with multiples in the areas that you're looking at? Are there parts of the market that are getting, you know, a little frothy for your, you know, for your for your comfort, or are you still pretty comfortable kinda with valuations across the board?

Speaker 1

I'll maybe I'll answer it in a different way. I I plan to be extremely disciplined in, in our approach to acquisitions. You know, looking to acquire we are not going to acquire for the sake of acquiring. We we need to we will acquire if it makes sense, if it adds value to our customers, but also if we are if it adds value to the shareholder of the company. So the the multipliers will have to be right.

Speaker 1

And, you know, if a certain acquisition, will be out in the market for a bid, then, prices will not be reasonable. We are not going to go for it.

Speaker 5

Got it. Very good. And then one last one for me. The trading and leasing business, as you noted, saw the near tripling here year over year. I know that's a lumpy business, and probably pretty difficult to forecast.

Speaker 5

But can you kind of give us any expectations on the, you know, relative year over year growth here that you're looking at in the second half within within that segment?

Speaker 1

Yeah. So so, there are two aspects here. The the first aspect is the leasing side of the business. Everything every asset that we own is leased. We have nothing that is sitting and waiting.

Speaker 1

There is huge demand, and I wish that we could have had more assets for the leasing activity. So over there, you know, it's not going to grow substantially because everything that we have is deployed. But it's steady and continues, and as long as the the supply chain challenges in the industry continues, I I feel that we will keep on enjoying very strong demand on the leasing side. On the trading, it's a little bit more, it's it's a little bit more challenging. There are two factors here.

Speaker 1

First of all, our trading business is based on finding, as remove assets, assets that were removed from all the aircraft, from all fleet, buying them, then bringing them to the shops, overhauling them, and and exchanging them with exchange programs to customers that are out of inventory or, in other cases, on the lending gear selling them to customer that needs lending gear sets. But there are two factors here that makes this makes it a little bit more spotty. You cannot it's not there is no real ongoing flow of deals that you can look at. Therefore, the answering the question is very difficult. The first factor is that, as a general saying, because of the fact that airlines keep on flying very old platforms, there is much less teardown activity of old airplanes comparing to what it used to be in the past up until a year and a half, two years ago.

Speaker 1

So it's it's much harder to find the assets for asset as remove assets from teardowns to purchase. And there is lots of companies like us that are dealing with trading, as you know, that are they are we're all fighting on the same fleet. So one challenge is to is to put your hand on the right assets and, and to buy them typically very fast deals that goes away within couple of days. And the second factor is operational efficiency. So let's assume that you perished us that you purchased the the asset.

Speaker 1

Now you need to overall it, and you want to balance you you want to balance it with the MRO intake that we have. So first of all, we need to take care of our customers on the MRO side. What they would mention before is where we leveraged it in second quarter. So we had a softer intake than than usual, which basically opened up some capacity, and we immediately leveraged the capacity to to overall assets that we purchased since the beginning of the year and to put them out to put them on the shelf for sale and we or to sell or to exchanges, APUs, exchanges, and lending gear sales, and you see it in the in the results. So this factor of ability to find the assets in the market and the capacity that that you need to reserve to take care of your customers, they are going to continue and and creating fluctuations on on the on the trading deals, almost like a counter cycle, if you will, that can change from quarter to quarter.

Speaker 1

Having said all of this, we have a team of great team of of of employees and leaders in the trading department that are working very hard to bring more and more deals and to find more and more assets. So we definitely want to increase this business.

Speaker 5

Very good. That's that's very helpful commentary. Well, congratulations again on a nice quarter and really great backlog growth. Thanks for taking my questions, and I'll get back

Speaker 1

in queue. Thanks, Ben. I appreciate the comment.

Operator

Your questions, Ben. The next question will be from Jonathan Siegman at Stifel. Jonathan, please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Good day. Thank you for taking my question. Just on the margins, I was impressed to see them rise sequentially despite some of the segments not having sales growth sequentially. Was there any one off benefits there that that helped you that might not be sustainable, or or any other color you can expand on what drove that impressive margins? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Hi, Jonathan. And we I I I stated it every quarter in the last, I believe, six, seven quarters. We we my my goal is to improve is to improve to have a strategy that results in improving profitability. So for me, improving the margin and improving the profit is more important than just improving revenue for the sake of revenue. Behind this nice, slogan, we have meaningful initiatives across the board in all the sites.

Speaker 1

And I'm talking about initiatives to improve operational efficiencies, automation, improving equipment, initiatives around the the workforce itself, how to how to make the employees' life easier, how to improve productivity, how to how to improve utilization of employees. I can say that with all the improvements that we have achieved, we have still many of these initiatives underway, and this is why we feel that we have more room to continue and improve. So I I wouldn't say that there was any specific element, onetime element that contributed it. Because if you look at the at the overall trend over the last two years, it's consistent improvement. The second thing that we do to improve the EBITDA is we make sure that we that we manage our expenses.

Speaker 1

We we are all you know, as we are running the business fairly lean, and we are not we are paying a lot of attention not to increase our operating expenses more than what the business can afford and make sure that we always increase revenue more than what we increase expenses and spending to to verify that we that we will increase the margin. The last major effort that we have is is on the purchasing price, continuing to continuing substantial effort in our supply chain to reduce cost, to find alternative suppliers, to improve quality, and and to reduce waste in production. All All of of this this resulting in what we see. And, again, I believe that we have still more to more to do in the coming few quarters.

Speaker 6

Thank you. And then slip in another one on on freight. You mentioned that being impacted by tariffs. Specifically, is that end market one where you're seeing some strengthening the last month? Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Yes. Definitely. And I I I'm not sure that they had by the way, I'm representing not the freight companies, the cargo carriers, but there was a concern. When the when the tariff came, I I I I know they were expressing serious concern about potential impact on their business. I don't know if if at the end of the day, they reported a slowdown or not, to be honest.

Speaker 1

So but they act they act based on the concerns. You know, if you if you say discretionary spending is the first time that you act that you cut when you have when you have concern about the outlook of your business. So that's my that's our interpretation of the situation.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

I'm gonna move to, any, written questions that were submitted using the q and a widget. Here is a question around, the backlog. Question is, how long is the backlog in terms of years ahead, or how much of it is for next year? Maybe talk talk, Vigal, about how the backlog converts into revenue over time.

Speaker 1

Yes. So the backlog includes two types of two types of it's backlog and long term value of MRO. On the OEM side, it's backlog. These are the confirmed POs that we received from our customers. And on the MRO, when every contract that we signed has based on the customer forecast, we we assign the value that we expect the revenue value that we expect to to see from the customer.

Speaker 1

We actually update this value on an annual base based on the actual performance of the customer. So that's the methodology that we are using. MRO MRO deals are typically signed between three to five years. So when we sign if we announce, I don't know, the $4,040,000,000 dollar deal, if it's based on five years, it's going to be $8,000,000 a year for the coming five years. But the range is between three to five years.

Speaker 1

And on the OEM side, it it it can split it again between two types. One is shorter term projects, okay, accessories, air condition systems, and such. The typically orders that we receive today, then we're supposed to supply them in the next by the by the end of next year. On the thermal components, we I think that we are full. We have all the POs already for 2026.

Speaker 1

And behind that, we are we are using if we have an exclusive agreement with an aircraft manufacturers where we supply the the thermal components, we we are calculating the value that they would have to purchase from us in the following years based on the based on their production plan of aircraft. So, again, it's not an easy answer, and it it's definitely not just for next year. So, again, MRO, three to five years, OEM, on on fleets that are going to continue being produced in the next, over the next couple of years, we look at the value based on the production.

Operator

Thank you for that, response, Ygal. You know, there are additional questions, but as I read through them, they there are questions that have already been answered by you. So I, respectfully appreciate the submission of those questions, but, hopefully, you got the answers you needed. If not, please feel free to reach out to the IR team after the call, and we'll follow-up with you. At this point, I'd like to turn the back the call back to Ygal for concluding remarks.

Speaker 1

So, basically, just as a conclusion of this call, first of all, thank you for joining us. This quarter was another milestone for TAT reflecting the benefits of our the first invite offer to our customers and the and the and the growth prospect that it provides. Our increasing strength enable us to pivot pivotal our capital market transaction that strengthens our balance sheet and optimizes our capital structure. This position us to advance to the next stage of our strategy, adding acquisitions alongside with continuing the organic growth that we that we enjoy. We head into the second half of the year with a strong momentum while remaining mindful of ongoing industry wide challenges.

Speaker 1

I believe that we are now better positioned than before, and I am more confident than ever in our long term prospects. So, again, thank you very much, for the confidence in us and for joining us, and, have a good day.

Operator

This concludes the earnings conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.

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