NASDAQ:STRT Strattec Security Q4 2025 Earnings Report $64.15 +1.70 (+2.72%) Closing price 05/11/2026 04:00 PM EasternExtended Trading$63.00 -1.15 (-1.78%) As of 08:26 AM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Massive. Learn more. ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Strattec Security EPS ResultsActual EPS$2.06Consensus EPS $1.07Beat/MissBeat by +$0.99One Year Ago EPSN/AStrattec Security Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$152.01 millionExpected Revenue$143.51 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$8.51 millionYoY Revenue GrowthN/AStrattec Security Announcement DetailsQuarterQ4 2025Date8/14/2025TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateFriday, August 15, 2025Conference Call Time9:00AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Annual Report (10-K)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Strattec Security Q4 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrAugust 15, 2025 ShareLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: We delivered $30 million in Q4 and $71.7 million in operating cash flow for the fiscal year, ending with a healthy $84.6 million in cash and $52 million of revolver availability. Positive Sentiment: Revenue grew 6% in the quarter and 5% for the year, while gross margin expanded by 370 bps to 16.7% in Q4 and 280 bps for the full year. Positive Sentiment: Transformation initiatives, including a 15% headcount reduction, simplified operations, and refreshed leadership, drove margin expansion and improved working capital efficiency. Negative Sentiment: Fiscal 2026 guidance assumes a 5–6% decline in North American OEM production and flattish sales, offset partially by pricing actions but weighed down by market uncertainty. Negative Sentiment: Tariff changes resulted in $1.6 million of Q4 net tariff expenses and are expected to increase annual costs by $5–7 million, though mitigation efforts and customer recoveries are in progress. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallStrattec Security Q4 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xThere are 7 speakers on the call. Speaker 300:00:00Meetings, and welcome to the Strattec Security Corporation fourth quarter fiscal year 2025 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Deb Pawlowski of Investor Relations for Strattec. Thank you. You may begin. Speaker 500:00:34Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We greatly appreciate you joining us for Strattec's fourth quarter and fiscal 2025 year-end financial results conference call. Joining me on the call this morning are Jennifer Slater, President and CEO, and Matthew Pauli, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Jen and Matt will review our financial results, the progress being made to transform Strattec, and our expectations for fiscal 2026. You can find a copy of the press release and the slides that accompany our conversation today on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. If you are reviewing these slides, please turn to slide two for the safe harbor statement. As you are aware, we may make some forward-looking statements on this call during the formal discussion as well as during the Q&A. Speaker 500:01:23These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated on today's call. These risks and uncertainties and other factors are discussed in the earnings release, as well as with other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You can find these documents on our website as well. I want to also point out that during today's call, we will discuss some non-GAAP measures, which we believe will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided reconciliations of non-GAAP to comparable GAAP measures in the tables accompanying the earnings release and slides. Speaker 500:02:11If you would please turn to slide three, I will turn it over to Jen to begin. Jen. Speaker 200:02:18Thank you, Deb, and welcome, everyone. We ended fiscal 2025 on a strong note with solid sales growth, expanded margins, strong cash generation, and a much better business from where we were at the beginning of the fiscal year when I joined the company as CEO. Our success was a result of our team, whom I want to thank for their energy, perseverance, and hard work. We covered a lot of ground and underwent significant change in fiscal 2025. We have a refreshed and energized executive team. We added critical talent throughout the organization and continue to do so. We simplified our operations and reduced headcount by 15%. We implemented an operating cadence and created communication channels that had not existed in the organization before. We also began the work to reshape our product portfolio, and we advanced our plans to modernize our manufacturing operations. Speaker 200:03:20These efforts were clearly demonstrated in our financial results, which I will now touch on for the quarter and the year. We delivered very strong cash generation as we generated $30 million in cash from operations for the quarter and $71 million for the fiscal year. In addition to achieving stronger cash earnings, we improved our working capital velocity and benefited from some one-time opportunities to unlock value from the balance sheet that Matt will discuss later. Revenue grew 6% in the quarter and 5% for the year. Higher sales and favorable foreign currency exchange, combined with the initial benefits from our restructuring efforts, helped to drive 370 basis points of gross margin expansion for the quarter, as well as 280 basis points of margin improvement for the year. Speaker 200:04:11Fourth quarter EBITDA margin of 8.5% also demonstrated our continued progress through the year, but was up against a tough comparator in the prior year that benefited from a one-time engineering cost recovery of $4.8 million. Our efforts resulted in an EBITDA margin expansion of 220 basis points for the year to 7.7%. Please turn to slide four. Our priorities for fiscal 2025 were to create shareholder value, which we believe our transformation actions to date have accomplished across key focus areas of the business. This is demonstrated by the significant progress we have made to improve our underlying operations, unlock working capital, and build a strong team. As we move into fiscal year 2026, we will continue to focus on these same priorities. While we did unlock most of the low-hanging fruit, we still believe we have opportunity to improve our margin profile. Speaker 200:05:13We are also focusing on leveraging our product expertise in key areas of the business, such as digital key and power access solutions, to expand our customer base and facilitate growth. Our healthy balance sheet will help us weather any weakening market condition and continue to invest in the growth of the business and create value for our shareholders. If you will turn to slide five, you can see that there were a number of drivers to sales growth in both the quarter and the year. The fourth quarter benefited from our strategic pricing initiatives, as well as higher demand. Throughout the year, we have had the advantage of several new program launches, as well as being well-positioned on better selling platforms. We are expecting our growth from new vehicle launches to moderate, as we are in between significant launch cycles with our existing customers. Speaker 200:06:07Due to the long-cycle nature of our business, we are actively working today to be included on model year 2029 and 2030 platforms. We are also working to broaden our reach to a larger customer set than we have addressed historically. We are excited about the future for Strattec and expect that over the long term, we can continue to drive a growing, stronger margin profile business with greater predictability and earnings power. Let me now turn it over to Matt. Speaker 400:06:37Thanks, Jen, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with slide six. Fourth quarter gross profit increased to $25.4 million and gross margin expanded by 370 basis points to 16.7%. Gross profit improvement was the result of a $3 million benefit from a stronger U.S. dollar, strategic pricing actions, $1.7 million in tooling gains, higher production volumes, and $1.3 million of restructuring savings. These gains more than offset $1.6 million of net tariff expenses stemming from recent changes in U.S. trade policy and higher labor costs in Mexico, albeit on a lower headcount. Based on the currently enacted tariff rates, we estimate that the annual cost increase is between $5 million to $7 million before any mitigation efforts. However, we have taken steps to change our logistic routes, review our supply chain, and implement price increases or tariff recoveries from customers. Speaker 400:07:36Our tariff mitigation efforts have continued after our fiscal year end, and as of today, we have line of sight to recover the majority of the cost, but the recovery of tariff costs will lag the associated expenses. For the full fiscal year, gross margin improved by 280 basis points, reflecting these same drivers: pricing actions, cost optimization, and FX partially offset by elevated labor costs in Mexico and ongoing tariff headwinds. Turning to slide seven, selling, administration, administrative, and engineering expenses, or SAE, was $16.9 million. Prior year, SAE benefited from $4.8 million of one-time engineering recoveries that makes the year-over-year comparison difficult. What's important to take away is that we are holding our SAE steady at about 11% of sales. Speaker 400:08:28The absolute spend reflects deliberate investments in our transformation initiatives, as well as a $2.2 million increase related to incentive compensation and bonus expense that were the result of strong financial performance for the year. For the fiscal year, our SAE included $6.7 million of incremental incentive compensation costs given our financial performance, $1 million in additional executive transition costs, and $1 million of business transformation costs. Let's move to slide eight, where we summarize our profitability. Net income attributable to Strattec for the quarter on both a GAAP and an adjusted basis declined primarily due to the prior year's engineering recovery benefit that I mentioned earlier and the increase in bonus provision this year on improved performance. Adjusted EBITDA was $13 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8.5%. Our results reflect the team's commitment to delivering sustainable margin improvement. Speaker 400:09:26Let me point out that over the long term, we believe the business model would suggest a low-teens EBITDA margin. Now turning to slide nine, which highlights our cash flow, balance sheet, and capital priorities. Operating cash flow was strong for the quarter at $30.2 million, a 55% improvement over the same period last year. This reflects higher cash earnings, disciplined working capital management, the collection of about $5 million of historical VAT balances in Mexico, and the benefit of timing on receivables. During the quarter, we also had an $11 million reduction in inventory levels, partially attributable to reduced in-transit inventory. While this benefited working capital, I should point out that we will need to increase some inventory to maintain timely deliveries to our customers. For the year, operating cash flow reached $71.7 million, a record for the company. Speaker 400:10:20We had the one-time opportunities captured during the year that I mentioned earlier, which makes repeating this performance a challenge until we gain more scale. Year to date, capital expenditures totaled $7.2 million, consistent with our focus on new product programs, productivity enhancements, and IT infrastructure upgrades. This resulted in free cash flow for the year of $64.5 million. We ended the year with a very healthy cash position of $84.6 million. We also have approximately $52 million available under our revolving credit facilities. Our capital priorities in the near term are to create organic growth through investment in our commercial initiatives, drive operational improvements through modernization, and continue new product innovation. We are also being conservative with our cash through these uncertain times, including moderated market conditions. Speaker 400:11:12Over the longer term, once we've established a greater amount of predictability in the business, we'll be in a better position to consider shareholder distributions as well as M&A. If you turn to slide 10, I'll outline in general our expectations for fiscal 2026, given our perspective on our end markets as we know it today. As most of you are aware, we are a very long-cycle business, and the work we are doing today, as Jen mentioned, will be apparent in model years 2029 and beyond. In the meantime, our sales will generally follow North American OEM production volumes, given that we will lapse several key launches that we benefited from in fiscal 2025. Current third-party industry projections estimate that North American automotive production for our fiscal 2026 will be lower by about 5 to 6%, with softness more prevalent in the second half of the fiscal year. Speaker 400:12:06We expect that we will still benefit from our recent pricing actions, especially in the first half of the year. We believe the business over the longer term and with sufficient volume is capable of achieving gross margins in the 18 to 20% range. Until then, we will continue to focus on what we can control with margins, productivity, working capital, and cash generation. As I mentioned earlier, we had a very robust year from a cash generation that was boosted by several one-time opportunities. For 2026 and beyond, we expect to continue to generate solid cash from operations, but at a more normalized rate. In summary, we are pleased with our solid financial progress and the momentum we are building through our strategic execution. With that, operator, we're ready to open the line for questions. Speaker 300:12:53Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of John Franzreb with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:13:29Good morning, everybody, and congratulations on another great quarter. Speaker 400:13:34Morning, John. Speaker 600:13:34Morning, John. Speaker 400:13:36I'd like to start with the transformation process, Jen. I'm curious, how far along do you think you are on it, and how long do you think it will take before you're satisfied with the majority of it being completed? Speaker 200:13:49Thanks for the question, John. You know, I would say we're still in the early innings of the transformation. We did have the opportunity this past fiscal year to address a lot of the low-hanging fruit. Now, as we focus on further transformation items, they'll be more longer-term in nature than what we were able to see in fiscal year 2025. Speaker 600:14:14When I looked at that slide on page four, I was wondering, does that mean you're considering exiting or divesting product lines? Is that a possibility in that process? Speaker 200:14:29I think I can give one example. We had some products, really our switch product line. When we look at that market, there's less and less switches in the vehicle. Today, it's already a crowded market. We have other areas of our business, like our power access solutions and our digital key fobs, that we feel we have a lot of opportunity. We're still supporting our customers that we have in production, but we're really refocusing our engineering efforts around those products that we feel have more growth and provide more value to our customers. Speaker 600:15:08I'm going to guess the other side of that question on the same slide is the larger customer set. I assume that means outside the automotive market. Can you give some examples or have you had any hits yet, or what you'd be looking at? Speaker 200:15:24Yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean outside of the automotive market, John. If you look at our customer concentration, we've been pretty concentrated around some of the larger North American customers. We feel we have opportunity within automotive. The second layer of that is if you think about transportation, you know, heavy vehicle, off-road, there's opportunity for us there too. Our priority really is to continue to start within automotive. Speaker 600:15:54Okay. Thanks. Thanks for clarifying that for me. I guess one last question, I'll get back into queue. On the gross margins, two great quarters of above 16%. I believe Matt said the long-term target is in the 18 to 20% range. What should we think about in fiscal 2026 as kind of a sustainable range for gross margin? Speaker 400:16:18Yeah, John, this is Matt. I think, you know, we finished the year at 15% gross margin for the fiscal year. We provided a little bit of a view on what we see on a go-forward basis on slide 10. Revenues will be down to flattish in fiscal 2026. We do have the tailwinds in the first half of 2026 around the pricing that we implemented in January, which is about $8 million, and some of the restructuring actions. On the flip side, we also have incremental costs around Mexico labor inflation, which we'll see in the back half of the year. Speaker 600:16:55You know, I guess, Matt, I'm curious, this might be too soon to ask this question, but do you have a sense of what the incremental and decremental margins of the company are going to look like after some of these actions are completed? Speaker 400:17:08Yeah, we generally see incremental and decremental margins in kind of the 25% to 30% range. Speaker 600:17:14Okay, great. Thanks. I'll get back into queue. Speaker 200:17:17Thanks, John. Speaker 300:17:20Our next question comes from a line of Brian Sponheimer with Gabelli Funds. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 100:17:27Hi, good morning, everyone, and congratulations. Speaker 200:17:31Morning, Brian. Speaker 600:17:32Hey, Brian. Speaker 100:17:34A couple of questions on the balance sheet and then just a couple on operations and product. You mentioned that you want to invest organically and invest in new products, but it's $21 a share, $22 a share, and $21.50 a share in cash. To what extent are you willing to hold that substantial amount of cash? Where basically, what's your cushion given the uncertain times? What is in excess of what you would consider to be the appropriate cushion for this business? How you would think about the excess cash on the balance sheet. Speaker 200:18:20Yeah, thanks for the question, Brian. Matt and I were expecting to get this question. You know, really where we are right now, the good thing is that we're not worried day-to-day about liquidity, which is really helping us focus on driving the improvement in the underlying business. There's a lot of uncertainty still in North America production. As you heard Matt say, you know, we really are following what those productions, what North America production schedule is. When we have this market uncertainty, we feel very comfortable that we've got the cash that we have to help us continue to focus on the transformation of the business. Speaker 200:19:04I think, you know, as we think about it, we really look to make sure that we've got stability in the underlying business, continuing to focus on the transformation, and then get through a little bit more certainty on what's going to happen in the market before we can get to a point where we're thinking about what is that cash cushion and how do we want to allocate longer-term shareholder value. Speaker 100:19:29Okay. Understood. You mentioned investing in new products with digital key fob as an area for growth. I'm curious how you see that digital key fob balancing with potentially the secular decline of more of the physical key fob business that you've had and whether it's kind of a net neutral for the overall business and whether there's any sort of subscription revenue that could come from a digital key fob product. Speaker 200:20:07Yeah. We've done a lot of third-party market studies on what does it look like for a digital key fob longer term. We still see that there's both a consumer drive and a customer drive to have the physical key fob, which helps us get our confidence around having a digital key fob that's connecting to the car and the phone for the consumer. As far as subscription services, a lot of the customers are holding that opportunity. I think it's premature, Brian, with where we are in our product development to think about where we have further subscription opportunity. Obviously, that's something we'll continue to understand as we work with our customers and see what their needs are for themselves and the consumers. Speaker 100:21:00Okay, great. The last one for me, you talked about next year being more of a flattish year, but if you were to take $2 in earnings for the quarter in what traditionally hasn't been, you traditionally haven't been the most seasonal of businesses, but obviously, you extrapolate that out to $7.5 to $8 a share. How much do you think the performance of this $2 a share in earnings is repeatable? How much potentially were some more one-time items that you think we shouldn't be considering? If we're thinking about an earnings number for 2026, 2027. Speaker 200:21:46I think I'm just going to frame that a little bit with the market again, Brian, because I think, you know, as we talked about, it will be connected to where the North America production market is. If you were to look at third-party projections earlier in this calendar year versus later in the calendar year, production levels dropped 10% to what they were projecting earlier from a third-party standpoint. I'll let Matt add on from his perspective. Speaker 400:22:15Yeah, it really comes down to volume. I think we've done a good job over the past year of the things that we can control. We've been more aggressive on pushing pricing where we have the opportunity and also on the cost takeout, which is what you see in the back half of the year. We'll balance that with some of the inflationary pressures that we see on a go-forward basis, as well as the headwinds from volume and some of the investments we still need to make in the business. Speaker 100:22:43Understood. Clearly, you're on an excellent track, and we look forward to seeing what's ahead. Speaker 200:22:49Thanks so much, Brian. Speaker 400:22:50Thank you. Speaker 300:22:53Our next question comes from the line of Dennis Scannell with Ruterbaker Capital. Please proceed with your question. Operator00:22:59Yes, good morning, Jen and Matt, and congratulations on a great quarter and a great finish to the year. Just a couple of quick things. To follow up on the margin question, to get to that low-teens EBITDA margin potential, is that just volume growth, or will that take, how do I want to put it, kind of like the new programs that you're targeting in the, say, the 2029, 2030 model year in terms of achieving that kind of margin improvement? Speaker 400:23:32Yeah, the margin improvement really comes at the gross margin line, and I think there's kind of three drivers there that'll help us get to those longer-term margins. First off, it's pricing. We've demonstrated the ability to get price. I think we'll continue to drive pricing where we command a premium. The second piece is around volume, which is the new model year launches. The third is really around operational improvements. There's a funnel of continuous improvement ideas around both the four-wall costs as well as supply chain. We've added two new leaders to help us there in identifying kind of the opportunity set. Longer term, there's obviously kind of structural changes we could make around our footprint and on a go-forward basis. Speaker 200:24:20Yeah, I think I would just add on to that. Matt touched on the two new leaders. We've recently added a Vice President of Operations. He's hit the ground running and helping us, as Matt said, look at our four-wall costs and making sure that we're implementing standard operating procedures and understanding what the opportunity is on that side of the business. We also added supply chain talent for us to look at logistics and our overall supply chain. As we talked about our low-hanging fruit that we addressed last year, we've done some cost efficiency opportunities, but we haven't really looked at that longer-term structural changes. Operator00:25:02Got it. Great. Thank you. Just a couple of other quick things. Obviously a great year in terms of cash flow and some benefiting from some one-time items. Matt, when you said that you expect free cash flow to return to more normalized levels, again, I feel like you guys have changed the business a lot. What do you see as normalized levels? Is that kind of $20 to $30 million free cash flow per year, or how do we think about that? Speaker 400:25:30Yeah, so I'd reference our results in 2025. You know, we delivered $71 million of cash from operations. I'd say about half of that is kind of the normal, and the other half was kind of recovery of some pre-production balances, which we reduced by about 50% during the year. There was also a $25 million reduction in working capital, which I'd categorize as kind of low-hanging fruit. You know, I'm encouraged by the efforts the team has made around our working capital. At the beginning of the year, it was roughly 22% of our sales, and at the end of the year here, it's a little over 16%. We've stated kind of our longer-term target around primary working capital, that being, you know, receivables, inventory, and payables is 15%. We've made a nice move here in the fiscal year. Operator00:26:18Excellent. Excellent. Just one other little thing. On the VAT recovery, nice to hear that we collected $5 million during the year. It's still pretty high, elevated relative to where it was a few years ago. I kind of remember something under $10 million. Do you expect that to come down, or will that receivable kind of stay in that $19 to $20 million level? Speaker 400:26:48That's one of the opportunities we have on a go-forward basis to leverage our balance sheet. We collected $5 million in the quarter. It's about 50% of the balance that we were trying to collect from 2023. Obviously, there's some for 2024 that we need to collect as well. That's an opportunity for us on a go-forward basis. Operator00:27:06Got it. Great. Hey, thanks a lot. Really nice job and look forward to tracking you guys going forward. Speaker 200:27:14Thank you so much. Speaker 300:27:18Our next question is a follow-up from John Franzreb with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:27:24Yes, I was just curious about the comments on inventory. Matt, you alluded to it was a temporary drawdown. How much does that have to go back up to be in equilibrium with your demand profile? Can you kind of frame that for us? Speaker 400:27:42Yeah, so I think, you know, our inventory turns at the end of the year were just over seven. It was a temporary reduction. We'd expect it to go up here in 2026 just from an on-time delivery with our customers. Our inventory at the end of the year was roughly about $65 million. I'd probably put it in the $5 million-ish range of we'd be more comfortable with another $5 million of inventory. Obviously, we're going through the process to understand on a part-level basis, kind of make to stock, make to order, and what's the right levels of inventory by item. Speaker 200:28:16Yeah, I think I would add on to that, John, the two leaders we just added to the team are going to also help us make sure we've got the right level of inventory in the right places to serve our customers. Speaker 600:28:29Since you brought that up, Jen, I'm just curious, how much more personnel do you need to add to your team? Do you think you have the proper people around you to execute what you're looking for on a go-forward basis? Speaker 200:28:43Yeah, I think we, Matt and I, are comfortable with the levels of investment that we have, you know, on a % revenue basis. We've put investment in place, but as a whole, you know, I feel good with what we have, John. We'll continue to address the organization where we need to add capability, but it doesn't necessarily relate to always incremental investment. Speaker 600:29:07Okay. One last question. I'm just curious, where do you stand on selling the Milwaukee facility? Any kind of update there? Speaker 200:29:14Yeah. Again, kind of with our cash position, we're not in a hurry to exit the building. We want to make sure that we've got the right opportunity for our operations and our headquarter and getting it at the right price. We're still in the process, John, but there's no new update. Speaker 600:29:35Okay. All right. Thanks and congrats again. Speaker 200:29:38Thanks, John. Speaker 300:29:42Our next question comes from a line of Mario Gabelli with Gabelli Funds. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:29:48Thank you for taking the question. Just a couple of dots. Currency, how hedged are you? Is your cash strictly in U.S. banks or still some in the outside the United States and subsidiaries in Mexico or elsewhere? Speaker 400:30:07The majority of our cash is in the U.S. bank accounts. From a hedging standpoint, we have layers. Speaker 600:30:12The majority means 51%. Can you give me a better number? Speaker 400:30:21It's over 70% of it's in the U.S. Speaker 600:30:23All right. That means 30% is not, but the currency moves sometimes have impacts on your quarters. The second question is the tax bill that was just passed. When you're doing R&D on your digital, is that expensed or is that, what else benefits in terms of any other elements? Speaker 400:30:45Yeah, the tax bill will benefit us from our cash tax savings going forward. We have about a $10 million deferred tax asset that we'll realize because we don't need to defer those R&D expenses from a tax standpoint on an annual basis. That's probably the biggest benefit is on the R&D side. Speaker 600:31:06All right, that's great. Thank you. I have a few more, but I'll get those through Brian and others. Just to kind of go back to the question of your fob business, let's assume there's 300 million vehicles on the roads in the U.S. and another 1.4 billion around the world. How much DNA do you have on the fobs in the U.S.? Who's your competitor? Just refresh us. Speaker 200:31:35Yeah. Again, Mario, traditionally, we've served the North America Big Three customers. Our focus has been there. Our competitors in that space are Continental, Denso, and Huf. Speaker 600:31:54Any discussions of taking over their DNA, so to speak, of their base, given all of the challenges that are taking place in tariff movements? Speaker 200:32:06Yeah, we're continually looking at where we can provide value, if it's new incremental for us or if it's opportunity with our footprint for our customers. Speaker 600:32:16All right, and this is a question from us. You know, how do I get recurring revenues on an ongoing basis from subscriptions? This is like direct or direct to consumer. Right now, most of your channels of distribution, I walk into a Ford dealer for my lost car key and I'm paying X dollars. How easy is it to look at, given that channel of distribution, going to a direct-to-consumer type bypass to the Ford's dealerships? Speaker 200:32:46Yeah, we do have some aftermarket business. Today, 7% of our revenue is through aftermarket, and some of that's dealer direct, some of that's through distributors. This is something that we're focusing on, but it's a little, we're still in kind of the early stages of understanding where we would have further opportunity there. Speaker 600:33:07Thanks for the update, Jen. The only reason you asked that is it has an impact on the multiple, some of the AI parts of the world will pay for your stock earnings. Look forward to continuing to congratulate you on all your accomplishments. Take care. Speaker 200:33:23Thank you, Mario. Speaker 300:33:26Thank you. We have no further phone questions at this time. Ms. Pawlowski, I'd like to turn the floor back to you for a web question. Speaker 500:33:34Thanks, Christine. I did have one question from one of our investors who congratulated Strattec on a nice quarter and year and wanted to know if we have any thoughts to share at present on possible new product offerings or new revenue opportunities over the next three to five years. Speaker 200:33:52Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, we're pretty comfortable with the products that we have and understanding that we think we have continued opportunity to expand our customer set within our current product portfolio. That's where our focus is around our power access solutions business and our digital key and addressing the customers we have today, but also expanding into new customers. Speaker 500:34:17Excellent. Thank you very much for joining us today. This concludes our call. I will point out that we will be at the Midwest Ideas Conference on the 26th of September. Maybe we can see you at the Ideas Conference. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Speaker 300:34:44Ladies 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.Read morePowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Annual report(10-K) Strattec Security Earnings HeadlinesManufacturer invests $2M in Glendale plant as office search continuesMay 12 at 2:51 AM | bizjournals.comFreedom Broker upgrades Strattec Security (STRT)May 12 at 2:51 AM | msn.comMillionaire warns: Move your money before May 15Larry Benedict - the trader who generated $274 million in client profits and beat the S&P 500 by 18 times in 2025 - says Trump's installation of a new Federal Reserve chair is triggering the most significant shift in U.S. markets in nearly 20 years. When the Fed cut rates in 2020, his readers had a chance at 62% gains. A 2022 rate-hike signal produced 117% in under a month. Now Benedict has identified the single ticker he believes will be at the center of the coming money flows - and he's revealing it free before May 15.May 12 at 1:00 AM | Brownstone Research (Ad)Beam Global (NASDAQ:BEEM) vs. Strattec Security (NASDAQ:STRT) Critical ComparisonMay 10 at 4:35 AM | americanbankingnews.comStrattec Security Corporation (NASDAQ:STRT) Q3 2026 Earnings Call TranscriptMay 9 at 10:06 AM | insidermonkey.comSTRATTEC expects Q4 revenue down 3%-4% y/y while targeting 18%-20% gross margin over next few yearsMay 8, 2026 | msn.comSee More Strattec Security Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Strattec Security? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Strattec Security and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Strattec SecurityStrattec Security (NASDAQ:STRT) is a Wisconsin‐based designer and manufacturer of mechanical and electronic locking systems for the global automotive market. Established more than five decades ago, the company supplies original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and the aftermarket with a broad portfolio of lock and key solutions tailored to passenger cars, light trucks and commercial vehicles. The company’s product range includes mechanical locking systems such as door lock cylinders, ignition lock modules, key blanks and door handles, as well as electromechanical and keyless‐entry systems. Strattec also develops associated components, including convertible‐top latches, seat back latches and accessory modules, enabling it to serve a variety of vehicle interior and exterior applications. Strattec operates manufacturing and engineering facilities in the United States, Mexico and Europe, supporting customers across North America, Latin America and select markets in Asia and Europe. Its global footprint allows for close collaboration with automotive OEMs during product development, prototyping and localized production. Guided by an experienced management team, Strattec emphasizes continuous investment in research and development, quality assurance and advanced manufacturing techniques. The company’s focus on innovation and stringent quality standards positions it as a trusted supplier of secure access solutions for the automotive industry.View Strattec Security ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles Ubiquiti’s Uptrend Can Continue, But Don’t Rush to Buy ItMercadoLibre Boldly Invests in Growth: Discount DeepensManic Monday.com: The Rally Is Just the Beginning for this SaaS LeaderMeta Platforms’ Wild Post-Earnings Swings: Where Analyst Price Targets Stand NowTapestry Stock Drops After Strong Quarter and Raised OutlookMarketBeat Week in Review – 05/04 - 05/08Quantum Earnings Season Is Ramping Up—What to Watch From 2 Major Players Upcoming Earnings Cisco Systems (5/13/2026)Alibaba Group (5/13/2026)Manulife Financial (5/13/2026)Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (5/13/2026)Takeda Pharmaceutical (5/13/2026)Applied Materials (5/14/2026)Brookfield (5/14/2026)National Grid Transco (5/14/2026)NU (5/14/2026)Mizuho Financial Group (5/15/2026) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. 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There are 7 speakers on the call. Speaker 300:00:00Meetings, and welcome to the Strattec Security Corporation fourth quarter fiscal year 2025 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Deb Pawlowski of Investor Relations for Strattec. Thank you. You may begin. Speaker 500:00:34Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We greatly appreciate you joining us for Strattec's fourth quarter and fiscal 2025 year-end financial results conference call. Joining me on the call this morning are Jennifer Slater, President and CEO, and Matthew Pauli, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Jen and Matt will review our financial results, the progress being made to transform Strattec, and our expectations for fiscal 2026. You can find a copy of the press release and the slides that accompany our conversation today on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. If you are reviewing these slides, please turn to slide two for the safe harbor statement. As you are aware, we may make some forward-looking statements on this call during the formal discussion as well as during the Q&A. Speaker 500:01:23These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated on today's call. These risks and uncertainties and other factors are discussed in the earnings release, as well as with other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You can find these documents on our website as well. I want to also point out that during today's call, we will discuss some non-GAAP measures, which we believe will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided reconciliations of non-GAAP to comparable GAAP measures in the tables accompanying the earnings release and slides. Speaker 500:02:11If you would please turn to slide three, I will turn it over to Jen to begin. Jen. Speaker 200:02:18Thank you, Deb, and welcome, everyone. We ended fiscal 2025 on a strong note with solid sales growth, expanded margins, strong cash generation, and a much better business from where we were at the beginning of the fiscal year when I joined the company as CEO. Our success was a result of our team, whom I want to thank for their energy, perseverance, and hard work. We covered a lot of ground and underwent significant change in fiscal 2025. We have a refreshed and energized executive team. We added critical talent throughout the organization and continue to do so. We simplified our operations and reduced headcount by 15%. We implemented an operating cadence and created communication channels that had not existed in the organization before. We also began the work to reshape our product portfolio, and we advanced our plans to modernize our manufacturing operations. Speaker 200:03:20These efforts were clearly demonstrated in our financial results, which I will now touch on for the quarter and the year. We delivered very strong cash generation as we generated $30 million in cash from operations for the quarter and $71 million for the fiscal year. In addition to achieving stronger cash earnings, we improved our working capital velocity and benefited from some one-time opportunities to unlock value from the balance sheet that Matt will discuss later. Revenue grew 6% in the quarter and 5% for the year. Higher sales and favorable foreign currency exchange, combined with the initial benefits from our restructuring efforts, helped to drive 370 basis points of gross margin expansion for the quarter, as well as 280 basis points of margin improvement for the year. Speaker 200:04:11Fourth quarter EBITDA margin of 8.5% also demonstrated our continued progress through the year, but was up against a tough comparator in the prior year that benefited from a one-time engineering cost recovery of $4.8 million. Our efforts resulted in an EBITDA margin expansion of 220 basis points for the year to 7.7%. Please turn to slide four. Our priorities for fiscal 2025 were to create shareholder value, which we believe our transformation actions to date have accomplished across key focus areas of the business. This is demonstrated by the significant progress we have made to improve our underlying operations, unlock working capital, and build a strong team. As we move into fiscal year 2026, we will continue to focus on these same priorities. While we did unlock most of the low-hanging fruit, we still believe we have opportunity to improve our margin profile. Speaker 200:05:13We are also focusing on leveraging our product expertise in key areas of the business, such as digital key and power access solutions, to expand our customer base and facilitate growth. Our healthy balance sheet will help us weather any weakening market condition and continue to invest in the growth of the business and create value for our shareholders. If you will turn to slide five, you can see that there were a number of drivers to sales growth in both the quarter and the year. The fourth quarter benefited from our strategic pricing initiatives, as well as higher demand. Throughout the year, we have had the advantage of several new program launches, as well as being well-positioned on better selling platforms. We are expecting our growth from new vehicle launches to moderate, as we are in between significant launch cycles with our existing customers. Speaker 200:06:07Due to the long-cycle nature of our business, we are actively working today to be included on model year 2029 and 2030 platforms. We are also working to broaden our reach to a larger customer set than we have addressed historically. We are excited about the future for Strattec and expect that over the long term, we can continue to drive a growing, stronger margin profile business with greater predictability and earnings power. Let me now turn it over to Matt. Speaker 400:06:37Thanks, Jen, and good morning, everyone. Let's begin with slide six. Fourth quarter gross profit increased to $25.4 million and gross margin expanded by 370 basis points to 16.7%. Gross profit improvement was the result of a $3 million benefit from a stronger U.S. dollar, strategic pricing actions, $1.7 million in tooling gains, higher production volumes, and $1.3 million of restructuring savings. These gains more than offset $1.6 million of net tariff expenses stemming from recent changes in U.S. trade policy and higher labor costs in Mexico, albeit on a lower headcount. Based on the currently enacted tariff rates, we estimate that the annual cost increase is between $5 million to $7 million before any mitigation efforts. However, we have taken steps to change our logistic routes, review our supply chain, and implement price increases or tariff recoveries from customers. Speaker 400:07:36Our tariff mitigation efforts have continued after our fiscal year end, and as of today, we have line of sight to recover the majority of the cost, but the recovery of tariff costs will lag the associated expenses. For the full fiscal year, gross margin improved by 280 basis points, reflecting these same drivers: pricing actions, cost optimization, and FX partially offset by elevated labor costs in Mexico and ongoing tariff headwinds. Turning to slide seven, selling, administration, administrative, and engineering expenses, or SAE, was $16.9 million. Prior year, SAE benefited from $4.8 million of one-time engineering recoveries that makes the year-over-year comparison difficult. What's important to take away is that we are holding our SAE steady at about 11% of sales. Speaker 400:08:28The absolute spend reflects deliberate investments in our transformation initiatives, as well as a $2.2 million increase related to incentive compensation and bonus expense that were the result of strong financial performance for the year. For the fiscal year, our SAE included $6.7 million of incremental incentive compensation costs given our financial performance, $1 million in additional executive transition costs, and $1 million of business transformation costs. Let's move to slide eight, where we summarize our profitability. Net income attributable to Strattec for the quarter on both a GAAP and an adjusted basis declined primarily due to the prior year's engineering recovery benefit that I mentioned earlier and the increase in bonus provision this year on improved performance. Adjusted EBITDA was $13 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8.5%. Our results reflect the team's commitment to delivering sustainable margin improvement. Speaker 400:09:26Let me point out that over the long term, we believe the business model would suggest a low-teens EBITDA margin. Now turning to slide nine, which highlights our cash flow, balance sheet, and capital priorities. Operating cash flow was strong for the quarter at $30.2 million, a 55% improvement over the same period last year. This reflects higher cash earnings, disciplined working capital management, the collection of about $5 million of historical VAT balances in Mexico, and the benefit of timing on receivables. During the quarter, we also had an $11 million reduction in inventory levels, partially attributable to reduced in-transit inventory. While this benefited working capital, I should point out that we will need to increase some inventory to maintain timely deliveries to our customers. For the year, operating cash flow reached $71.7 million, a record for the company. Speaker 400:10:20We had the one-time opportunities captured during the year that I mentioned earlier, which makes repeating this performance a challenge until we gain more scale. Year to date, capital expenditures totaled $7.2 million, consistent with our focus on new product programs, productivity enhancements, and IT infrastructure upgrades. This resulted in free cash flow for the year of $64.5 million. We ended the year with a very healthy cash position of $84.6 million. We also have approximately $52 million available under our revolving credit facilities. Our capital priorities in the near term are to create organic growth through investment in our commercial initiatives, drive operational improvements through modernization, and continue new product innovation. We are also being conservative with our cash through these uncertain times, including moderated market conditions. Speaker 400:11:12Over the longer term, once we've established a greater amount of predictability in the business, we'll be in a better position to consider shareholder distributions as well as M&A. If you turn to slide 10, I'll outline in general our expectations for fiscal 2026, given our perspective on our end markets as we know it today. As most of you are aware, we are a very long-cycle business, and the work we are doing today, as Jen mentioned, will be apparent in model years 2029 and beyond. In the meantime, our sales will generally follow North American OEM production volumes, given that we will lapse several key launches that we benefited from in fiscal 2025. Current third-party industry projections estimate that North American automotive production for our fiscal 2026 will be lower by about 5 to 6%, with softness more prevalent in the second half of the fiscal year. Speaker 400:12:06We expect that we will still benefit from our recent pricing actions, especially in the first half of the year. We believe the business over the longer term and with sufficient volume is capable of achieving gross margins in the 18 to 20% range. Until then, we will continue to focus on what we can control with margins, productivity, working capital, and cash generation. As I mentioned earlier, we had a very robust year from a cash generation that was boosted by several one-time opportunities. For 2026 and beyond, we expect to continue to generate solid cash from operations, but at a more normalized rate. In summary, we are pleased with our solid financial progress and the momentum we are building through our strategic execution. With that, operator, we're ready to open the line for questions. Speaker 300:12:53Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of John Franzreb with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:13:29Good morning, everybody, and congratulations on another great quarter. Speaker 400:13:34Morning, John. Speaker 600:13:34Morning, John. Speaker 400:13:36I'd like to start with the transformation process, Jen. I'm curious, how far along do you think you are on it, and how long do you think it will take before you're satisfied with the majority of it being completed? Speaker 200:13:49Thanks for the question, John. You know, I would say we're still in the early innings of the transformation. We did have the opportunity this past fiscal year to address a lot of the low-hanging fruit. Now, as we focus on further transformation items, they'll be more longer-term in nature than what we were able to see in fiscal year 2025. Speaker 600:14:14When I looked at that slide on page four, I was wondering, does that mean you're considering exiting or divesting product lines? Is that a possibility in that process? Speaker 200:14:29I think I can give one example. We had some products, really our switch product line. When we look at that market, there's less and less switches in the vehicle. Today, it's already a crowded market. We have other areas of our business, like our power access solutions and our digital key fobs, that we feel we have a lot of opportunity. We're still supporting our customers that we have in production, but we're really refocusing our engineering efforts around those products that we feel have more growth and provide more value to our customers. Speaker 600:15:08I'm going to guess the other side of that question on the same slide is the larger customer set. I assume that means outside the automotive market. Can you give some examples or have you had any hits yet, or what you'd be looking at? Speaker 200:15:24Yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean outside of the automotive market, John. If you look at our customer concentration, we've been pretty concentrated around some of the larger North American customers. We feel we have opportunity within automotive. The second layer of that is if you think about transportation, you know, heavy vehicle, off-road, there's opportunity for us there too. Our priority really is to continue to start within automotive. Speaker 600:15:54Okay. Thanks. Thanks for clarifying that for me. I guess one last question, I'll get back into queue. On the gross margins, two great quarters of above 16%. I believe Matt said the long-term target is in the 18 to 20% range. What should we think about in fiscal 2026 as kind of a sustainable range for gross margin? Speaker 400:16:18Yeah, John, this is Matt. I think, you know, we finished the year at 15% gross margin for the fiscal year. We provided a little bit of a view on what we see on a go-forward basis on slide 10. Revenues will be down to flattish in fiscal 2026. We do have the tailwinds in the first half of 2026 around the pricing that we implemented in January, which is about $8 million, and some of the restructuring actions. On the flip side, we also have incremental costs around Mexico labor inflation, which we'll see in the back half of the year. Speaker 600:16:55You know, I guess, Matt, I'm curious, this might be too soon to ask this question, but do you have a sense of what the incremental and decremental margins of the company are going to look like after some of these actions are completed? Speaker 400:17:08Yeah, we generally see incremental and decremental margins in kind of the 25% to 30% range. Speaker 600:17:14Okay, great. Thanks. I'll get back into queue. Speaker 200:17:17Thanks, John. Speaker 300:17:20Our next question comes from a line of Brian Sponheimer with Gabelli Funds. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 100:17:27Hi, good morning, everyone, and congratulations. Speaker 200:17:31Morning, Brian. Speaker 600:17:32Hey, Brian. Speaker 100:17:34A couple of questions on the balance sheet and then just a couple on operations and product. You mentioned that you want to invest organically and invest in new products, but it's $21 a share, $22 a share, and $21.50 a share in cash. To what extent are you willing to hold that substantial amount of cash? Where basically, what's your cushion given the uncertain times? What is in excess of what you would consider to be the appropriate cushion for this business? How you would think about the excess cash on the balance sheet. Speaker 200:18:20Yeah, thanks for the question, Brian. Matt and I were expecting to get this question. You know, really where we are right now, the good thing is that we're not worried day-to-day about liquidity, which is really helping us focus on driving the improvement in the underlying business. There's a lot of uncertainty still in North America production. As you heard Matt say, you know, we really are following what those productions, what North America production schedule is. When we have this market uncertainty, we feel very comfortable that we've got the cash that we have to help us continue to focus on the transformation of the business. Speaker 200:19:04I think, you know, as we think about it, we really look to make sure that we've got stability in the underlying business, continuing to focus on the transformation, and then get through a little bit more certainty on what's going to happen in the market before we can get to a point where we're thinking about what is that cash cushion and how do we want to allocate longer-term shareholder value. Speaker 100:19:29Okay. Understood. You mentioned investing in new products with digital key fob as an area for growth. I'm curious how you see that digital key fob balancing with potentially the secular decline of more of the physical key fob business that you've had and whether it's kind of a net neutral for the overall business and whether there's any sort of subscription revenue that could come from a digital key fob product. Speaker 200:20:07Yeah. We've done a lot of third-party market studies on what does it look like for a digital key fob longer term. We still see that there's both a consumer drive and a customer drive to have the physical key fob, which helps us get our confidence around having a digital key fob that's connecting to the car and the phone for the consumer. As far as subscription services, a lot of the customers are holding that opportunity. I think it's premature, Brian, with where we are in our product development to think about where we have further subscription opportunity. Obviously, that's something we'll continue to understand as we work with our customers and see what their needs are for themselves and the consumers. Speaker 100:21:00Okay, great. The last one for me, you talked about next year being more of a flattish year, but if you were to take $2 in earnings for the quarter in what traditionally hasn't been, you traditionally haven't been the most seasonal of businesses, but obviously, you extrapolate that out to $7.5 to $8 a share. How much do you think the performance of this $2 a share in earnings is repeatable? How much potentially were some more one-time items that you think we shouldn't be considering? If we're thinking about an earnings number for 2026, 2027. Speaker 200:21:46I think I'm just going to frame that a little bit with the market again, Brian, because I think, you know, as we talked about, it will be connected to where the North America production market is. If you were to look at third-party projections earlier in this calendar year versus later in the calendar year, production levels dropped 10% to what they were projecting earlier from a third-party standpoint. I'll let Matt add on from his perspective. Speaker 400:22:15Yeah, it really comes down to volume. I think we've done a good job over the past year of the things that we can control. We've been more aggressive on pushing pricing where we have the opportunity and also on the cost takeout, which is what you see in the back half of the year. We'll balance that with some of the inflationary pressures that we see on a go-forward basis, as well as the headwinds from volume and some of the investments we still need to make in the business. Speaker 100:22:43Understood. Clearly, you're on an excellent track, and we look forward to seeing what's ahead. Speaker 200:22:49Thanks so much, Brian. Speaker 400:22:50Thank you. Speaker 300:22:53Our next question comes from the line of Dennis Scannell with Ruterbaker Capital. Please proceed with your question. Operator00:22:59Yes, good morning, Jen and Matt, and congratulations on a great quarter and a great finish to the year. Just a couple of quick things. To follow up on the margin question, to get to that low-teens EBITDA margin potential, is that just volume growth, or will that take, how do I want to put it, kind of like the new programs that you're targeting in the, say, the 2029, 2030 model year in terms of achieving that kind of margin improvement? Speaker 400:23:32Yeah, the margin improvement really comes at the gross margin line, and I think there's kind of three drivers there that'll help us get to those longer-term margins. First off, it's pricing. We've demonstrated the ability to get price. I think we'll continue to drive pricing where we command a premium. The second piece is around volume, which is the new model year launches. The third is really around operational improvements. There's a funnel of continuous improvement ideas around both the four-wall costs as well as supply chain. We've added two new leaders to help us there in identifying kind of the opportunity set. Longer term, there's obviously kind of structural changes we could make around our footprint and on a go-forward basis. Speaker 200:24:20Yeah, I think I would just add on to that. Matt touched on the two new leaders. We've recently added a Vice President of Operations. He's hit the ground running and helping us, as Matt said, look at our four-wall costs and making sure that we're implementing standard operating procedures and understanding what the opportunity is on that side of the business. We also added supply chain talent for us to look at logistics and our overall supply chain. As we talked about our low-hanging fruit that we addressed last year, we've done some cost efficiency opportunities, but we haven't really looked at that longer-term structural changes. Operator00:25:02Got it. Great. Thank you. Just a couple of other quick things. Obviously a great year in terms of cash flow and some benefiting from some one-time items. Matt, when you said that you expect free cash flow to return to more normalized levels, again, I feel like you guys have changed the business a lot. What do you see as normalized levels? Is that kind of $20 to $30 million free cash flow per year, or how do we think about that? Speaker 400:25:30Yeah, so I'd reference our results in 2025. You know, we delivered $71 million of cash from operations. I'd say about half of that is kind of the normal, and the other half was kind of recovery of some pre-production balances, which we reduced by about 50% during the year. There was also a $25 million reduction in working capital, which I'd categorize as kind of low-hanging fruit. You know, I'm encouraged by the efforts the team has made around our working capital. At the beginning of the year, it was roughly 22% of our sales, and at the end of the year here, it's a little over 16%. We've stated kind of our longer-term target around primary working capital, that being, you know, receivables, inventory, and payables is 15%. We've made a nice move here in the fiscal year. Operator00:26:18Excellent. Excellent. Just one other little thing. On the VAT recovery, nice to hear that we collected $5 million during the year. It's still pretty high, elevated relative to where it was a few years ago. I kind of remember something under $10 million. Do you expect that to come down, or will that receivable kind of stay in that $19 to $20 million level? Speaker 400:26:48That's one of the opportunities we have on a go-forward basis to leverage our balance sheet. We collected $5 million in the quarter. It's about 50% of the balance that we were trying to collect from 2023. Obviously, there's some for 2024 that we need to collect as well. That's an opportunity for us on a go-forward basis. Operator00:27:06Got it. Great. Hey, thanks a lot. Really nice job and look forward to tracking you guys going forward. Speaker 200:27:14Thank you so much. Speaker 300:27:18Our next question is a follow-up from John Franzreb with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:27:24Yes, I was just curious about the comments on inventory. Matt, you alluded to it was a temporary drawdown. How much does that have to go back up to be in equilibrium with your demand profile? Can you kind of frame that for us? Speaker 400:27:42Yeah, so I think, you know, our inventory turns at the end of the year were just over seven. It was a temporary reduction. We'd expect it to go up here in 2026 just from an on-time delivery with our customers. Our inventory at the end of the year was roughly about $65 million. I'd probably put it in the $5 million-ish range of we'd be more comfortable with another $5 million of inventory. Obviously, we're going through the process to understand on a part-level basis, kind of make to stock, make to order, and what's the right levels of inventory by item. Speaker 200:28:16Yeah, I think I would add on to that, John, the two leaders we just added to the team are going to also help us make sure we've got the right level of inventory in the right places to serve our customers. Speaker 600:28:29Since you brought that up, Jen, I'm just curious, how much more personnel do you need to add to your team? Do you think you have the proper people around you to execute what you're looking for on a go-forward basis? Speaker 200:28:43Yeah, I think we, Matt and I, are comfortable with the levels of investment that we have, you know, on a % revenue basis. We've put investment in place, but as a whole, you know, I feel good with what we have, John. We'll continue to address the organization where we need to add capability, but it doesn't necessarily relate to always incremental investment. Speaker 600:29:07Okay. One last question. I'm just curious, where do you stand on selling the Milwaukee facility? Any kind of update there? Speaker 200:29:14Yeah. Again, kind of with our cash position, we're not in a hurry to exit the building. We want to make sure that we've got the right opportunity for our operations and our headquarter and getting it at the right price. We're still in the process, John, but there's no new update. Speaker 600:29:35Okay. All right. Thanks and congrats again. Speaker 200:29:38Thanks, John. Speaker 300:29:42Our next question comes from a line of Mario Gabelli with Gabelli Funds. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:29:48Thank you for taking the question. Just a couple of dots. Currency, how hedged are you? Is your cash strictly in U.S. banks or still some in the outside the United States and subsidiaries in Mexico or elsewhere? Speaker 400:30:07The majority of our cash is in the U.S. bank accounts. From a hedging standpoint, we have layers. Speaker 600:30:12The majority means 51%. Can you give me a better number? Speaker 400:30:21It's over 70% of it's in the U.S. Speaker 600:30:23All right. That means 30% is not, but the currency moves sometimes have impacts on your quarters. The second question is the tax bill that was just passed. When you're doing R&D on your digital, is that expensed or is that, what else benefits in terms of any other elements? Speaker 400:30:45Yeah, the tax bill will benefit us from our cash tax savings going forward. We have about a $10 million deferred tax asset that we'll realize because we don't need to defer those R&D expenses from a tax standpoint on an annual basis. That's probably the biggest benefit is on the R&D side. Speaker 600:31:06All right, that's great. Thank you. I have a few more, but I'll get those through Brian and others. Just to kind of go back to the question of your fob business, let's assume there's 300 million vehicles on the roads in the U.S. and another 1.4 billion around the world. How much DNA do you have on the fobs in the U.S.? Who's your competitor? Just refresh us. Speaker 200:31:35Yeah. Again, Mario, traditionally, we've served the North America Big Three customers. Our focus has been there. Our competitors in that space are Continental, Denso, and Huf. Speaker 600:31:54Any discussions of taking over their DNA, so to speak, of their base, given all of the challenges that are taking place in tariff movements? Speaker 200:32:06Yeah, we're continually looking at where we can provide value, if it's new incremental for us or if it's opportunity with our footprint for our customers. Speaker 600:32:16All right, and this is a question from us. You know, how do I get recurring revenues on an ongoing basis from subscriptions? This is like direct or direct to consumer. Right now, most of your channels of distribution, I walk into a Ford dealer for my lost car key and I'm paying X dollars. How easy is it to look at, given that channel of distribution, going to a direct-to-consumer type bypass to the Ford's dealerships? Speaker 200:32:46Yeah, we do have some aftermarket business. Today, 7% of our revenue is through aftermarket, and some of that's dealer direct, some of that's through distributors. This is something that we're focusing on, but it's a little, we're still in kind of the early stages of understanding where we would have further opportunity there. Speaker 600:33:07Thanks for the update, Jen. The only reason you asked that is it has an impact on the multiple, some of the AI parts of the world will pay for your stock earnings. Look forward to continuing to congratulate you on all your accomplishments. Take care. Speaker 200:33:23Thank you, Mario. Speaker 300:33:26Thank you. We have no further phone questions at this time. Ms. Pawlowski, I'd like to turn the floor back to you for a web question. Speaker 500:33:34Thanks, Christine. I did have one question from one of our investors who congratulated Strattec on a nice quarter and year and wanted to know if we have any thoughts to share at present on possible new product offerings or new revenue opportunities over the next three to five years. Speaker 200:33:52Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, we're pretty comfortable with the products that we have and understanding that we think we have continued opportunity to expand our customer set within our current product portfolio. That's where our focus is around our power access solutions business and our digital key and addressing the customers we have today, but also expanding into new customers. Speaker 500:34:17Excellent. Thank you very much for joining us today. This concludes our call. I will point out that we will be at the Midwest Ideas Conference on the 26th of September. Maybe we can see you at the Ideas Conference. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Speaker 300:34:44Ladies 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.Read morePowered by