Bombardier Q2 2026 Earnings Report

Bombardier EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$3.55
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Bombardier Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.05 billion
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Bombardier Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 7/30/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, July 30, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

At Bombardier (TSE:BBD.A) (BBD-B.TO), we design, build, modify and maintain the world's best-performing aircraft for the world's most discerning people and businesses, governments and militaries. That means not simply exceeding standards, but understanding customers well enough to anticipate their unspoken needs. For them, we are committed to pioneering the future of aviation - innovating to make flying more reliable, efficient and sustainable. And we are passionate about delivering unrivaled craftsmanship and care, giving our customers greater confidence and the elevated experience they deserve and expect. Because people who shape the world will always need the most productive and responsible ways to move through it. Bombardier customers operate a fleet of approximately 5,200 aircraft, supported by a vast network of Bombardier team members worldwide and 10 service facilities across six countries.

Bombardier Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Strong first-half execution: Q2 revenue rose 6% year over year to $2.15 billion, adjusted EBITDA increased 9% to $325 million, and adjusted EPS more than doubled to $2.50. Management reaffirmed its raised full-year guidance.
• Demand and backlog remain robust: Backlog reached $21.8 billion, up $4.3 billion from year-end 2025, with a 1.5x unit book-to-bill ratio. Demand was described as broad-based across geographies, fleet operators, individual buyers, the Global 8000, and defense programs.
• Services continues to outperform: Services revenue grew 14% to a quarterly record of $674 million, supported by higher aircraft utilization and network expansion. Bombardier also cited additional growth opportunities, including a 10-year Swedish Armed Forces support agreement.
• Balance sheet and cash flow improved significantly: Free cash flow reached $228 million in Q2 and $588 million in the first half, while net debt fell by $356 million during the quarter. Refinancing reduced annualized interest expense by about $80 million, and Bombardier ended the quarter with 1.6x net leverage, approximately $1.9 billion of liquidity, and no debt maturities before November 2030.
• Delivery timing and supply-chain risks remain: Management expects Q3 to be broadly similar to last year, with revenue, EBITDA, and free cash flow heavily weighted toward a very active fourth quarter. Supply-chain constraints have improved but continue to pressure costs and deliveries, while inventory increased by more than $400 million to support the second-half delivery schedule.

Presentation

[Operator]

Morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Bombardier second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the discussion over to Mr. Francis Richer de La Flèche, Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations for Bombardier. Please go ahead.

[Francis Richer de La Flèche, VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Bombardier]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Bombardier's earnings call for the second quarter of 2026. I wish to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the financial performance of the corporation. There are risks that actual events or results may differ materially from these statements. For additional information on forward-looking statements and underlying assumptions, please refer to the MD&A. I'm making this cautionary statement on behalf of each speaker on this call. With me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Éric Martel, and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bart Demosky, to review our operations and financial results for the second quarter ended June 30th, 2026. I would now like to turn over the discussion to Éric.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

[Non-English content], Francis, [Non-English content]. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before Bart and I discuss our excellent progress, I want to provide some color on why the last quarter was significant to our entire team on many fronts. The Bombardier that I see today is a company that's continuing to build momentum. Our team is executing its plan at the top of their game. We've often talked about the importance of building a stronger, more resilient Bombardier. This quarter provided another good example of that journey in action. Revenue grew, EBITDA grew, free cash flow grew, our footprint is growing, our backlog is lengthening, and we are continuing to add flexibility to our balance sheet. Put simply, every fundamental measure of our business moved in the right direction.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Looking at demand specifically, it continues to be a strong tailwind for us. Our backlog expanded to nearly $22 billion, which reflects the quality of our product and services and the confidence customer have in our future. Continuing to invest and adding capacity has always been a priority for us. We have begun advancing the expansion of our manufacturing footprint in Montreal, which will support long-term delivery growth. In the second quarter, we also announced the expansion of our Singapore service center, which will nearly double the facility's capacity when it comes online in the second half of 2028. This project adds to our ongoing effort already underway in the U.S. and in the UAE. Demand for our services continues to grow. Our facilities continue to operate at very high utilization levels, and we remain focused on expanding our footprint in the region that matter most to our customers.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

At this point, I almost feel like I'm repeating myself, our services business continues to raise the bar, delivering another record quarter with revenue reaching $674 million, up 14% year-over-year. We've spoken many times about the importance of services to Bombardier's long-term strategy. As our installed fleet grows, aircraft utilization remains strong, and our global network continues to expand. We continue to see meaningful opportunities ahead, including the recently announced 10-year service support agreement with the Swedish Armed Forces. The good news is that we have moved from managing constraints to creating options, giving us significantly more flexibility for the future. During the quarter, we reduced net debt by more than $350 million while extending our maturity profile through refinancing transactions. To date, we have no debt maturities before November 2030, a strong liquidity position, and an adjusted net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.6x.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Over the past several years, we have worked diligently to strengthen our balance sheet and improve our cash generation. Today, that discipline is paying off, creating a good problem to have, more opportunities to allocate capital where we can create the most value. With $228 million of free cash flow generated this quarter and $588 million in the first half, we have the capacity to continue investing in our long-term strategy, including enhancing our capabilities across the value chain. Turning to aircraft sales demand from fleet customers continue to be solid across geographies. The recently announced letter of intent with The Helicopter Company for up to 60 aircraft is another good example of the momentum we're seeing in the market and the confidence customers have in the competitiveness of our product portfolio all around the world.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

As I mentioned at the start of our call, the standout metric is our expanding backlog, which grew by more than $4 billion since year-end to reach $28.8 billion. This tells a lot about the future. The Global 8000 aircraft continues to play a major role in that momentum. It is performing at the top of its category, both in the skies and in the order book. Customer interest remains extremely strong, and we continue to see tremendous enthusiasm for the capabilities this aircraft brings to the market. At the same time, momentum continues to accelerate in Bombardier Defense, with strong and sustained customer interest around the world and a growing pipeline of opportunities. The relationships we have built in key regions over many years continue to create opportunities across both our business aviation and defense activities.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Both Canada and NATO's down selection of our aircraft for Airborne Early Warning and Control on our Global 6500 program, as well as the recently announced order from South Korea, are all significant validation of the strength of our partnership and our platform's unique capabilities. We are well-positioned to support a strong second-half delivery profile, and our team across the company have continued to set themselves up for a higher volume over the long term, all while maintaining the operational discipline our customers have come to expect from Bombardier. That discipline includes very proactive management of our supply chain challenges, which is still an industry issue. There's no question about that. There is still a drag in terms of our cost and delivery profile, but we've been managing through this environment for several years now.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

We know where the pressure points are, and we adjusted very proactively at the outset in a very pragmatic and methodical way, as we've always done in the past. As we've said before, we will not push the system to chase near-term upside. Our focus remains on serving pre-sold demand, executing consistently, and growing output in a disciplined and responsible manner. This approach continues to give us great confidence in our ability to deliver on our commitment. We have strong demand, a growing backlog, record services revenue, significant free cash flow generation, and a very strong balance sheet. Clearly, we have moved from protecting the balance sheet to using it as a strategic advantage, which is a much better place to be. Given our strong performance through the first half of the year, we remain on track with our raised full-year guidance.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

When I look where Bombardier stands today, I see a company operating from a position of strength. Customers are making long-term decisions and placing their confidence in our product, our people, and our exceptional support. With that, I'll turn it over to Bart to walk you through the quarter in more detail. Bart, over to you.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Thank you, Éric, good morning, everyone. The first half of 2026 has certainly been a very strong one for Bombardier. When I look at our mid-year scorecard, all of our results demonstrate very solid execution against our financial priorities, profitable revenue growth, high ROI investments, strong free cash flow generation, and continued balance sheet improvement. In the first half, we delivered 56 aircraft, generated $3.7 billion in revenues, grew services to more than one-third of total revenues, maintained strong EBITDA margins, and generated nearly $600 million of free cash flow. Demand for new aircraft is strong across our portfolio, supported by exceptional customer interest in our large-cabin aircraft, particularly the Global 8000, and strong activity across all of our service network.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Our backlog reached $21.8 billion at quarter end, up $4.3 billion compared with year end 2025, supported by a unit book-to-bill of 1.5x, as well as a long-term services agreement signed with VistaJet in April. In Q2, we were very active on further optimizing our capital structure. First, we reduced net debt by an additional $356 million in the quarter, including the repayment of all outstanding debentures due 2026 and senior notes due 2029. This brought year-end gross debt reduction to $1.1 billion. We also lowered the average cost of our remaining debt through a $500 million refinancing transaction at a rate of five and seven eighths. The impact of these actions is significant. We've reduced our annual run rate interest expense by a further $80 million.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

We now have no debt maturing before November 2030, and we reduced our net leverage ratio by 16% to 1.6x. Lastly, we also strengthened our liquidity position, ending the quarter with approximately $1.9 billion of liquidity, and announcing today a new $750 million revolving credit facility to replace our previous $450 million facility. This new, larger RCF will provide us a significant improvement in pricing, liquidity, and financial flexibility and reflects our continuously improving credit quality. The actions we have taken to strengthen our balance sheet, combined with the performance of our operations, put us in a strong position to allocate capital with greater flexibility and discipline. Our priority is to deploy that flexibility towards growth. Across the business, we see compelling opportunities to invest organically in higher aircraft output, our services network, defense, and the continued strength of our product lineup.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

We also see opportunities to pursue inorganic growth where it can accelerate our strategic priorities and create attractive returns. At the same time, our stronger financial position gives us the ability to further optimize our capital structure and consider shareholder returns over time. We will remain disciplined in evaluating each of these choices with high ROIC growth-oriented investments continuing to sit at the center of our capital allocation approach. With that, I'll now spend a bit of time to take you through our Q2 results in more detail. Consolidated revenues reached $2.15 billion in the quarter, up 6% from a year ago. Aircraft manufacturing and other revenues increased by $38 million, largely the result of higher selling prices and a favorable mix of Global aircraft, partly offset by four fewer deliveries than in the prior year.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Services continued its standout performance with a 14% increase in revenues to a quarterly record of $674 million, supported by higher sustained activity across the network. Turning to profitability, adjusted EBITDA increased 9% year-over-year to $325 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 50 basis points to 15.1%. Reported EBIT reached $225 million, representing an EBIT margin of 10.5%, up 40 basis points year-over-year. The improvement in operating margins was driven by a stronger contribution from lower R&D and higher services business. These benefits were partly offset by higher SG&A as a percentage of revenues to support growth activities and fewer aircraft deliveries attributable mainly to timing. Our other profitability metrics, adjusted net income was $257 million and reported net income was $191 million for the quarter.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Adjusted earnings per share were up 125% to $2.50, a $1.39 increase versus last year, while diluted earnings per share was $1.84. Free cash flow was another standout metric this quarter, reaching $228 million, a $392 million improvement compared to the second quarter of 2025. Our Q2 free cash flow was the result of positive working capital, driven by a $610 million increase in customer advances as a result of progress payments and strong order intake, partly offset by a $420 million investment in inventories and accounts payable. Our CapEx in the quarter reached $110 million, and net cash interest was $120 million. As we are now moving through the second half of the year, we are in a great position to meet our raised 2026 guidance. We've made the inventory investments required to meet our full year delivery expectations.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

In terms of delivery profile, we expect a very active fourth quarter. This means that the balance of our revenues, EBITDA, and free cash flow to reach our guidance will largely also be skewed to the fourth quarter, with Q3 expected to be similar to last year across key metrics. In closing, I am very pleased with our performance at the halfway point of the year. The strength of our results reflects the quality of our team, the resilience of our business model, and the benefits of the strategic actions we have taken over the past years. With that, I'll turn it back over to Francis, and we can start the Q&A. Francis?

[Francis Richer de La Flèche, VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Bombardier]

Thanks, Bart. I'd like to remind you that the Bombardier Investor Relations team is available following the call and in the coming days to answer any questions you may have. For the question period, please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. With that, we'll open it up for questions. Operator?

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star two. One moment, please, for your first question. Your question comes from James McGarragle from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[James McGarragle, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me on.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Good morning, James.

[James McGarragle, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Just one of the other questions on the demand sustainability. Book-to-bill was obviously very strong. You cited strong Global 8000 demand. Is that concentrated amongst a few large fleet orders, or is it the defense orders, or is that kind of broadly spread out across individual buyers? Just trying to get a sense of how sustainable this order pace is into the H2, given some of this elevated macro and geopolitical uncertainty.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Yeah. Great question, James. I think the demand is pretty much across the board for us right now. I would say across geography, with maybe a little slowdown in the Middle East, despite, and I think we understand, but everything else is really working strong. Even when I say the Middle East, you saw what we've announced in Farnborough, with The Helicopter Company, an intention of creating their own fleet operation. I think that when you look at the long-term possibility in the Middle East, they remain very strong. Strong demand, and I would say well distributed for us. Same pace on the fleet operator and traditional one by one is very, very strong. Again, possibilities in all geographies. I think across the board, we have 50 new order recorded in the quarter. As you know, the flight hours remain extremely strong.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Another 6% when you look at our fleet compared to last year, and way ahead in the 50%+ since before COVID. When I look at every day, we're asking the question, are we missing something? All the fundamental are strong, and the wealth creation is actually the biggest driver behind all of this that we all know about, of people desire to fly private. I think without saying, you've seen a lot of highlight on our defense business, which the demand is actually very, very strong. I can mention some of them that are public. You heard Canada negotiating for the GlobalEye, NATO up to 10 airplane. They've mentioned yesterday airplane in the Middle East. When you just add up those three possibility, you're talking about 18 plane. I think it's important, defense takes a longer time.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

We are not going to deliver those plane this year, but it gives us so much confidence for the future. Very little of those that are public right now are part of our backlog. Some are, some are not. Eventually they will turn around into backlog, and we will deliver a green plane and our partner will deliver, or with our support, a finished airplane to the customer. It is great. It is not just short term, but it is also building up our backlog for the future.

[James McGarragle, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

I appreciate the color. My follow-up is just on the free cash flow guide. Bart, I believe you said Q3 was going to come in about the same across your key metrics. I assume that means free cash flow. That points to, call it $800 million of free cash flow into the first three quarters. If we look at the worst free cash flow you have done in the past couple of years, I think 2023 did about $600 million. That is at least $1.4 billion of free cash flow. Can you just give us a bit of a color to think about how we should be thinking about free cash flow in Q4, just to help frame how the full year might come in, just given the volatility that we would typically see in that free cash flow number in Q4?

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Thanks, James. Good question. Free cash flow has obviously been very strong this year. As you said, we are sitting at just under $600 million for the year over the first half. Our raised guidance that we provided last quarter where we changed it from $600 million-$1 billion range to greater than $1 billion stands. We are very confident that we will obviously reach the revised upward guidance. To give you a sense of what that looks like, though, to get there, we assumed a book-to-bill of 1x for the last three quarters of the year. We have obviously had higher book-to-bill than that in Q2. I can tell you that Q3 demand remains very strong, is shaping up very good.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

The ability for us to not only achieve our new guidance, but to perform very well in free cash flow over the remainder of the year is very strong. We are in a good place. We are very pleased with where we are sitting. This is going to give us even greater flexibility around our balance sheet and capital allocation, as both Éric and I said on the call. What we are going to show, I think, is that we are going to be really disciplined in how we approach allocating that capital. Thanks, James.

[James McGarragle, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

No, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I'll turn the line.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Take care.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Konark Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

[Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank]

Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and congrats on great results here. Maybe just to clarify a quick thing on the margins of Bart. The R&D tax credit has been quite lumpy quarter-to-quarter. I think this quarter you recognized about $44 million tax credits here. Maybe a two-part there. Is it driven specifically by certain programs, or is the timing totally dependent on when you make investments, et cetera? Any color on what drives these things, and is it outsized or this is normal?

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Thank you, Konark, and good morning. Thanks for your comments and question. Look, the R&D tax credits have been part of our results and performance for the past four years now. We weren't able to utilize them early on in our business transformation and turnaround because we didn't have the track record of profitability and profitability growth that was needed to be able to start recognizing them, which is really formula-driven. The formula for recognizing R&D tax credits is driven by accounting policy, accounting structure, our external auditors. We have not changed that formula at all over the past number of years. What you're seeing now is that as our profitability has grown

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

As the prospects for profitability growth continue to increase, as our strategic plans of the future show incremental profitability growth, we'll continue to recognize the R&D tax credits. There are things every quarter that can cause them to change a little bit, I think what you're going to see moving forward is a more smooth recognition of these credits as our profitability profile now moves into a phase of just regular growth that's not as lumpy in and of itself quarter to quarter.

[Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank]

That's really helpful. Thanks. My main question was about the defense platform. I'm curious about your thoughts. You have the Canada, you have the NATO, you talked about other opportunities around the globe. I think Canada's also talking about building these or assembling these aircraft in Canada, for domestic as well as export usage. I know you guys provide the aircraft platform with some modification, but my understanding is the aircraft value, the AEW&C aircraft value itself is big enough for you to maybe increase the economic participation there. Trying to understand what you think your potential is there, to increase the economic participation. Can you extract more value than what you do today? Or where you are, you probably are capped.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

That's a great question, the short answer is absolutely. We already have an operation in Wichita that basically works on multiple program these day. Some from the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, from the German Air Force, all across the world. We're making those modification. There is definitely a strong desire to mirror that kind of operation in Canada. Actually, I have a team this week visiting sites to decide where we're going to do this. It's all about having the people and the talent available. We're looking at establishing ourself somewhere in Canada, a mirror operation of what we do. It's been public discussion with our partner, Saab, which it makes a lot of sense. We build the plane, we know the plane more than anybody else to make structural modification, provisioning, and potentially even installation of some of those equipment.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

We are looking into this for the GlobalEye and for other type of mission also. We are very active on this right now. Which was, to your point, an interesting area where there's a big piece of the revenue coming to those place and interesting margin. We're definitely looking at doing more there.

[Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank]

I appreciate the color. Thank you, guys.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Thank you, sir.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Fadi Chamoun from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Fadi Chamoun, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Thank you. Good morning.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Good morning, Fadi.

[Fadi Chamoun, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

You talked about demand outgrowing deliveries. I wanted to ask you, where are you in the plans to expand output? Specifically on how should we think about the timing of that expansion, in the delivery output, and the magnitude, like what level of production is currently supported by the backlog or the demand picture that you see out there?

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Yeah. No, that's a great question and a question we're debating here every day. We have to be mindful of that. The backlog is there, the potential is there, and I can probably easily convince myself to increase the rate across the board. We have to approach it in a disciplined manner. You don't raise the rate for a year or two. You have to see that this is going to be a long-term play. That's why we've already announced, and then if you come to our manufacturing site in Montreal right now, we're building a new facility. It's actually progressing very well to exactly do that, to have some capacity. We've been selective, and it's in the context also that we know as an industry that there is supply chain constraints.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

I need two things basically with the team to make that decision is first, we foresee a long-term demand for that product. The second one is that the supply chain is capable. We've taken, I would say, a more careful approach there than we probably did in the past. The one we're increasing now, we've studied it for more than a year probably. We have other opportunity too, that we haven't made a decision yet, but it's based on those two criteria. It's a long-term play. We see that we can increase and keep those rates for a while. The second one is, can the supply chain support us properly? We've been prudent. We're trying to give more time to our supplier to ramp up also, even more than what the contract says. It's just being careful here.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

We are building, we are increasing capability right now, and this has been mentioned publicly. There's a few other things we're working on right now and evaluating.

[Fadi Chamoun, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Right. Just to follow up on that You're clearly having a very strong year for advances and bookings. Bart, I wanted to ask you, usually when you have this situation, you have some investment in working capital supporting production increases or higher output. Is there a way for us to think about what kind of cash flow do we look through into 2027? How to think about really more normalized run rate of free cash flow performance? Clearly, this year is going to be very strong year given this demand and the advances growth you're experiencing. I just want to make sure we're cognizant that some of these advances have to go into inventories at some point. Just if you have any color on that.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Yeah. Good morning, Fadi, and thanks. To your last point, we did grow inventory in Q2 by over $400 million. That's to support what's going to be a very active delivery quarter in the fourth quarter. We'll have a fairly traditional delivery quarter here in Q3, and things are going well from that point of view. To just try and help frame up a bit of an answer to your question, if you think back to our guidance when we first set out five, six years ago now, we started with a view that we had a book-to-bill of 1x. We're going to get to about $500 million of free cash flow by last year. We increased that to $900 million a couple of years into the plan, and that's based on a book-to-bill of 1x.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Mix is obviously very important in that, as you know, because one Global 8000 is the equivalent of three or four 3500. Mix is important. As we're sitting here today with earnings growth happening each year, that does mean that beyond $900 million of free cash flow per year in a normal planning environment of a book-to-bill of 1x is a reasonable expectation for our company in the future and currently as well. This year, we're 1.5x book-to-bill in the first half of the year. Obviously, the customer advances are allowing us to perform on free cash flow above what would be a, I'll call it a more normalized environment. Hopefully that gives you a bit of a sense of what we're talking about.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Again, also, Fadi, if I may add, is the diversity of our portfolio today, having the services business, but also the defense business. I mentioned earlier, a lot of the things you hear in the news today about countries buying airplane. There's not even a firm contract for our partner. Those will translate probably not even this year, but probably later next year or maybe even the year after into real backlog for us. Of course, which comes with advances and payment. To echo what Bart said, we feel pretty good about the future also on cash flow.

[Fadi Chamoun, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Thank you.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Thanks, Fadi.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Thanks, Fadi.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins. Please go ahead.

[Benoit Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins]

Yes. Thank you very much and congrats for the results this morning. Just to pursue on the strong free cash flow generation, when we look at your balance sheet, you end up the quarter with a leverage of 1.6x, which is closer to the bottom end of the range, while we know that there's a seasonal free cash flow build-up upcoming in the second half. Any progress on discussion around capital deployment? Yeah.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Yeah. Benoit, great to hear from you this morning, thanks for the question. I'm going to echo comments we had and made with our board that this is a great problem to have, to be sitting on a very strong liquidity and cash position. I think what it allows us to do is to think very clearly about how we want to deploy that capital in the coming months and years. Not only in terms of investing in our business and our growth and our portfolio, both organically and inorganically, but really turning our attention towards return of cash to shareholders as well. We're actively reviewing all of that right now. We have a number of opportunities. We have a very strong organic growth profile that will require us to spend some money, particularly to support production growth that is coming, and we've already started to invest in.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

The timing of when we want to start talking about that more is early next year. We're planning our next investor date. We're working through all of the details, that's the timing of when we want to come back to the market and give you more color and clarity on that.

[Benoit Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins]

That's great color. Maybe just in terms of follow-up, aftermarket, also a strong performance at 14% year-over-year. It looks like that aftermarket growth is maybe a little bit above expectation. Any thoughts about what's driving this? Obviously, the number of hours and what kind of expectation we might be looking going forward. Thank you.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Thanks, Benoit. [Non-English content] Services has been on an amazing growth path as you know, since we started to carefully look at it in 2020. We had a very simple strategy, but we executed that strategy nicely, which was increasing our footprint, bringing more customer to come to us. What we've seen in Q2, we see a very similar trend going forward this year. The level of activity is very strong, and you pointed out the airplane, again, are flying 5% more than last year worldwide, I have to highlight, the Challenger is 7% up. The Global is 8% up actually, compared to last year. Our two main platform are performing extremely well. The fleet operator are also doing amazingly well this year. The demand is there. I think it's a reflection, we've talked earlier about wealth creation.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

People are flying more and more private. This is why there's pretty much no pre-owned airplane available on the market. Our backlog are full and people are flying. Those that don't have the airplane, they're chartering the airplane of their friends or somebody they know, and it makes the demand for services going up and up. Again, 14% compared to last year, I will admit it's higher than our expectation probably at the early of the year. Again, we're one month into this quarter already into Q3, and the demand is pretty strong. We've been excited about that business for the last six years, and the possibilities are remaining very strong ahead of us.

[Benoit Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins]

That's great, caller. Thank you very much for the time.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

[Non-English content], Benoit.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Tim James from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Tim James, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Thanks very much for your time. Good morning. I'm just wondering, Éric, first of all, if maybe you can talk about M&A as an investment opportunity here. What areas of the business, or maybe you can just update us on what areas of the business you would be considering, in terms of maybe capabilities that would be nice to have, whether it's in the aftermarket business or capabilities in terms of modifying aircraft for defense. Just what you're thinking about strategically and what capabilities you'd like to get through.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

No. Good morning, Tim. That's a great question, and I think you probably covered that already, but I will just reinforce that our two path, we have growth, potentially producing more VIP airplane. Defense is also a path, and services, as we just discussed. Clearly, there's a possibility for us if I look at services. The organic growth is very solid as you can see, but there is also possibilities for us to do things that we don't do today on our plane. Go have more penetration into the maintenance market. Maybe the best way for us to get there could be by acquisition. We're going to be very disciplined about this.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

We need to make sure that it's not dilutive to our business, but clearly there's possibilities out there that we are considering that could be incremental to our revenue, to our profitability, and improving basically our performance. We're going to look at those. We know the maintenance world pretty well, and we foresee some options there. Same thing I would say in defense. We mentioned earlier on this call that we look at starting something greenfield in Canada right now. Similar, something that we know because as I said, it's not new because we already do this, but there could be also a ways to get there faster, maybe elsewhere in the world also from some possibilities to do modification, as an example, and get there by acquisition.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Again, it's going to be a question, Bart and I and the team will look at it to see what's the best path for us. Again, we'll look at M&A opportunity that are incremental and definitely not dilutive to the opposite, that will make us even in a better profitable situation.

[Tim James, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Very helpful. Thank you. My follow-up question-

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Thank you.

[Tim James, Analyst at TD Cowen]

looking at the delivery cadence, you're laying out obviously a heavy fourth quarter here. Can you tell us or give us a little bit of your thoughts on how much of that heavy Q4 weighting is preference for that time of year versus your own ability to get aircraft produced and delivered and whether it be due to supply chain issues or just other internal restraints? I'm trying to understand the drivers behind that heavy Q4. Maybe as a part of that question is, think about this year then when it's done as kind of a normal year going forward, or could there be more smooth?

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Yeah, great question, Tim, and thanks for joining us on the call this morning. There's

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Definitely seasonality in our delivery profile and cadence. Part of it is delivered or based on vacation times, believe it or not, but it's true. We're much more active in the second and fourth quarters when it comes to sales activity and deliveries generally, typically for our business. Q4 does attract a higher number of requests from certain customers, particularly those in the U.S. who can benefit from accelerated tax depreciation. Taking delivery in Q4 for some of those customers is very desirable for them. That does skew things a little bit to the right into Q4. I think the last number of years, as an industry, it's not just a Bombardier thing.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

If you look at everybody's delivery cadence in the fourth quarter, it's higher than it has been traditionally because we've all been dealing with supply chain challenges as materials that are needed to finish aircraft and get them into customers' hands sometimes are coming later than we would've expected. We've all talked about engines, APUs, et cetera, as being things that have been late to line. That does mean that there's more deliveries happening in Q4 than traditionally. To offset that, what we've done is through contracting terms, we've made sure that progress payments from customers are very well balanced throughout the year. Our free cash flow profile is less seasonal than it has been and much better. As the supply chain does improve over time, and it has improved already, we'll be able to claw back some of that and even out the delivery profile.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Q4 will always be heavier. I've asked everyone around this company since I joined six years ago, how do we change this? The reality is that people who've worked here 30, 40 years will tell you it's always been this way. We do our best to meet those challenges, but there will always be more deliveries in Q4 than other quarters.

[Tim James, Analyst at TD Cowen]

That's helpful, Bart. Thank you very much.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Thanks, Tim.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Krista Friesen from CIBC. Please go ahead.

[Krista Friesen, Analyst at CIBC]

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just to your earlier comment about Q3 metrics being relatively similar year-over-year, just as we think about the margin, assuming you're referring to EBITDA margin as well, taking into account that your services business continues to be quite strong here, what are some of the puts and takes we should take into consideration for that margin being flat on a year-over-year basis?

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Good morning, Krista. Thanks for joining us on the call and thank you for your question. Last year or actually early this year when we came out with guidance, we did mention that we believed our margin profile for the year was going to be relatively stable to last year's margin profile. There's a few drivers of that. We're again growing inventory to increase production. Éric talked about that. We are ramping up deliveries in the second half. Last year we had a very strong delivery profile for defense. If you recall, I think we delivered 11 aircraft in the fourth quarter alone, 11 or 12. That's basically what we would've expected to have for the full year. It was a very strong delivery year for defense aircraft. We're going to pull back from that just a modest bit this year.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

You're going to see a bit of a different mix in the third quarter relative to the prior year. Aside from that, we are growing those parts of our business, as you mentioned, aftermarket services in particular, that have a stronger margin profile. We're looking beyond 2026 to begin increasing margins again as we start to deliver or continue to deliver a strong number of Global aircraft, but a growing part of the defense business and continued growth of aftermarket. Q3 year-over-year is looking exactly as we had expected. No concern from our perspective at all on the margin profile.

[Krista Friesen, Analyst at CIBC]

Thanks for the color on that. Maybe just to follow up on the previous question around kind of services and the M&A opportunity there. What sort of competition do you see in the market for acquiring some of this businesses? I'll leave it there.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

I think right now, there is some. I think we do foresee, though, that we could be seen as a strategic partner and bring things different. I think we have that capability of we have volume. In any day, we have hundreds of airplane in our network, which we could direct the work pretty much to a potential acquisition and partner or purchase. I guess this brings value too quite a bit. That's how we're thinking about this. There is some, but I would say I think we have an advantageous position in that regard.

[Krista Friesen, Analyst at CIBC]

Thank you.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Thank you so much, Krista.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Gavin Parsons from UBS. Please go ahead.

[Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS]

Thank you. Good morning.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Good morning.

[Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS]

Just to make sure I'm clear, did something specifically get worse in the supply chain in the first half? Is there anything that needs to unlock for that heavy 4Q delivery?

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

I would say the challenge was slightly different. I would say it's a good news, bad news story. Some of the challenges we had before were there for a long time and took a lot of time to fix. I would say the great news today is that some of those are completely behind us or have improved significantly. What we've seen were one-timer issue, I would say, that have affected us, but they are being fixed very rapidly. They're not going to just carry on. A bit of a different type of issue, but I would say with probably even a bit less impact. That's why it makes us confident in terms of delivering what we have to deliver this year.

[Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS]

Thanks. A higher-level question. As fleet operators become a bigger portion of demand, I'd love to hear your thoughts on just the puts and takes of that, the pros and cons.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Yeah. These guys are very significant and are becoming more significant. In a sense that if you look at flight hours on our plane since 2019, they're the biggest driver of growth overall in terms of hours flown. We've mentioned wealth creation earlier. There's a lot of people that have enough wealth to be able to fly privately with the fleet operator. There's different program as you know there, and they choose the one that fit their needs. Not everybody needs to fly a couple of hundred hours a year, that market is very significant, and it's growing. As you know, I think we are extremely well-positioned, Bombardier, and I think there's a couple of reasons. We've been selected for years by the main fleet operator and even the new one.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

We've mentioned a few name earlier of new operator, they're selecting Bombardier, I would say, for a couple of reasons. The first one is the known reliability and performance of the product. Okay. I think that even the biggest differentiator for us is our ability for our support and services. It's great to have a plane, but when you fly all around the world, and you're in the middle of Africa or Asia and you need support, it's easier to support the plane when it's in Teterboro, as example. There's a lot of activity there and everybody is there. We've developed that skill set, Bombardier, of fast turnaround anywhere, having parts availability. We forecast our parts with using AI, and our forecasting process has become more and more precise for what parts we need and where we need it.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

I think it's a real differentiator. I think that the fleet operator, most of them, they're all well-educated on the market and that the importance of support in operation, I think we have a huge advantage there compared to everybody else. I think this is why we've been selected more and more by fleet operator and that we are well-positioned. It's great because we do foresee these guys keep growing quite significantly in the next foreseeable future.

[Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS]

Thank you, Éric.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Thank you.

[Francis Richer de La Flèche, VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Bombardier]

Operator, we'll have time for one last question.

[Operator]

Perfect. Thank you. Your next question comes from Ron Epstein from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Yeah. Hey. Good morning, guys.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Good morning.

[Francis Richer de La Flèche, VP of FP&A and Investor Relations at Bombardier]

Good morning.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

You covered a lot of ground. One topic I'm always interested in is on the defense side, there's a lot of interesting stuff swirling around, so I just want to get your take on it. If Canada were to make a decision to buy Gripen, would there be work there for you guys in your defense business to do some assembly in Canada? That's one. Two, over at Farnborough, Canada became an official observer of the GCAP program. If Canada were to firm up more interest or something on GCAP, is there potentially work for Bombardier on the GCAP program? The logic being you are essentially really the only airframer that does much volume in Canada in defense markets. I guess Airbus is across the tarmac there, but they're doing commercial planes. Any commentary on that would be hugely appreciated.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

I think this is a great question, I'm being asked that question even in Farnborough a week ago. The way we're thinking about this is, if ever, this is hypothetical, the government of Canada would select the Gripen, especially that Saab has been a long-time partner, if they would need help, I think we would be helping. We feel also that there is a lot of other people in Canada that could be able to do the assembly. I said that publicly when I gave an interview in Farnborough, I feel that just for us, doing assembly is not of great interest, I would say. Again, if there is work, part of that assembly on major structure that we're the only one capable of doing in the country and they want it to be in the country, we could definitely support them.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

To your question on GCAP, yes, definitely interested. I'm happy that Canada is at the table now. You're right. It's a different thing here because we have engineering capability, as you know. For us to be part of this program, there's always things you learn, new technology are being developed, it's of interest for us to be interested by that, also see if we can have a role in the future. This is a very significant project. I think clearly Bombardier could have an interest in being interested, providing engineering resources and support to the program and learning from this. After, if ever opportunities arise that are of interest, we could definitely get into this sphere.

[Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you for that.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

Thank you, sir.

[Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO at Bombardier]

Thank you, Ron.

[Operator]

I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Éric Martel for closing remarks.

[Éric Martel, President and CEO at Bombardier]

To all of you, thank you for joining us today and also for the continued support and interest in Bombardier. Before we sign off, I just want to highlight the publication of our latest sustainability report also, and our environmental product declaration of the Global 8000, which also reflect the progress we continue to make in an area that remains an important part of the long-term vision of the company and the impact they generate also in the industry. As for the remaining weeks of the summer, I can tell you that the Bombardier team will be hard at work preparing for what we expect to be a very active and also exciting second half of the year. Thanks for joining us today.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Francis Richer de La Flèche, VP of FP&A and Investor Relations
• Éric Martel, President and CEO
• Bart Demosky, EVP and CFO

Analysts

• James McGarragle, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank
• Fadi Chamoun, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
• Benoit Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins
• Tim James, Analyst at TD Cowen
• Krista Friesen, Analyst at CIBC
• Gavin Parsons, Analyst at UBS
• Ron Epstein, Analyst at Bank of America